


more peril in thine eye

by iron_spider



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Divergence - Avengers: Endgame (Movie), F/M, Gen, Hurt Peter Parker, Peter Parker Needs a Hug, Precious Peter Parker, Protective Tony Stark, Recovery, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-19
Updated: 2020-01-18
Packaged: 2021-02-08 06:42:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 119,397
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21471712
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iron_spider/pseuds/iron_spider
Summary: Tony sits in relative darkness, the TV on mute, Friday running searches like she has been every day for the past month. A month, since Quentin Beck’s grand plan crumpled underneath him on that bridge. A month, since a flash of light was able to distract Peter just as he was about to bring Beck down. A month, since Beck snatched him, since both of them disappeared. An entire. Month.I’ll keep you updated. I promise.I love you, kid. Rhodey’s on his way, alright? He’s coming. He’s gonna go as fast as he can.I love you too. I’ll be okay. I promise. I can do this.The last thing Tony heard Peter say.Rhodey, Happy and Fury traversed the London landscape immediately afterwards. They found the glasses, but not Spider-Man. There was footage enough to incriminate Beck for what he was, but somehow, nobody was able to get a shot of when he grabbed Peter. Peter was knocking him around, looked like he was getting the upper hand, and then that flash of light.Gone. Gone.
Relationships: Happy Hogan/May Parker (Spider-Man), Matt Murdock & Peter Parker, May Parker (Spider-Man) & Peter Parker & Tony Stark, Michelle Jones/Peter Parker, Ned Leeds & Peter Parker, Pepper Potts/Tony Stark, Peter Parker & Sam Wilson, Peter Parker & Tony Stark
Comments: 1403
Kudos: 1793





	1. dark patches

**Author's Note:**

> This one is gonna be brutal as hell. Go ahead, with warnings. If you are worried you might be triggered, go to end notes for spoilers*

Tony drinks.

He sits in relative darkness, the TV on mute, Friday running searches like she has been every day for the past month. A month, since Quentin Beck’s grand plan crumpled underneath him on that bridge. A month, since a flash of light was able to distract Peter just as he was about to bring Beck down. A month, since Beck snatched him, since both of them disappeared. An entire. Month. 

Tony has been useless, since he snapped his fingers, since he was on death’s door and only Helen’s medical prowess was able to bring him back from the brink. He’s got a new, iron arm that he still isn’t used to, and half the time he forgets how to fucking walk. He doesn’t like the wheelchair. He doesn’t want to have to use it, and he practices walking every damn day so he can get his sea legs back. They’re still working on the scarring, still trying to make him less fucking terrifying than he was when he finally woke up. He can’t put on a suit, not yet, probably not ever again, and as soon as he saw what Peter was going through, in Europe, he just about lost his shit. 

Fury went over his head in pretty much every way he could have, including giving the kid the glasses, which he wasn’t supposed to get until he was of age. Until Tony was dead, under the ground, not holed up in the newly repurchased tower while the compound gets rebuilt.

But the kid was so strong. So goddamn capable, despite his mistakes, despite the hell he’d gone through. Happy was able to go and check in with him when Tony couldn’t, even though Tony nearly gave himself a stroke trying to get onto the plane. Pepper stopped him, with a gentle hand, despite how she’d wanted him to be able to be there for Peter, too. She knows how much the kid means to him, after everything. His kid. The brother Morgan always knew she had, even when he was just a bedtime story and an array of old photos.

Fury fell for Beck’s story. Peter did too. Tony wished, above all else, that he had seen the asshole’s face while Peter was filling him in on the details. He knew him, as soon as he saw him on the news, but by then it was too late. He was using a different name, when Tony knew him. But his anger only grew, how fucking unhinged he was only got worse—and the nightmare started. A way he could get to Tony without touching Tony himself. 

_I’ll keep you updated. I promise. _

_I love you, kid. Rhodey’s on his way, alright? He’s coming. He’s gonna go as fast as he can._

_I love you too. I’ll be okay. I promise. I can do this._

The last thing Tony heard Peter say.

Rhodey, Happy and Fury traversed the London landscape immediately afterwards. They found the glasses, but not Spider-Man. There was footage enough to incriminate Beck for what he was, but somehow, nobody was able to get a shot of when he grabbed Peter. Peter was knocking him around, looked like he was getting the upper hand, and then that flash of light. 

Gone. Gone.

Tony kept his identity a secret, because the footage didn’t show his face, but he let the Avengers know. Steve had come back with Natasha right after his returning the stones journey, and she was eager to start looking for Peter as soon as Tony informed her of what happened. Clint came out of retirement to help her search. Steve and Bucky went off on their own, exploring avenues others couldn’t. Tony wasn’t any good to anybody, and Bruce stayed with him and helped him with his physical therapy, as did Sam, which was a bit of a surprise. Everyone felt the weight of his loss, after everything he’d gone through to get Peter back in the first place. 

May pretty much moved in, and they grieved together. They watched the footage, over and over until they could remember every damn millisecond. There was something sallow in her eyes, and Tony knew it was in his own, too. The only solace he got was when Pepper ran her hands through his hair, or when Morgan curled up in his lap, holding onto him tight, like she was trying to keep him here. 

A month. A whole, entire month.

Tony has never felt like more of a failure. Only time that comes close is when the kid fucking _died_, but this time is worse because he should have protected him better. He never should have let this happen, after what happened before. 

May is sitting on the couch on the opposite side of the room, and she’s going over all the notes he’s had splayed out on the coffee table since this hell started. He’s got Beck’s files from when he worked for him—when he used to call himself Dean Carroway—and information on all the places Peter is not. A list with too many marks on it. Rhodey, Happy and Fury are in London again, and they’ve been back and forth so many times that Tony thinks they need to get apartments there.

He gets up, taking measured steps over to where May is. He’s getting better, at this whole walking thing. He can run now, for a few moments straight, and not fall into a heap of useless limbs when he has to stop. He told himself he’d be walking like a normal person again when they brought Peter home. Because they will bring Peter home. 

“Did we look at this batch of warehouses?” May says, pulling up a map of Harlem. This one has lots of writing on it, lots of places crossed out in red, some that they haven’t looked at yet highlighted. 

“I think we’re going there tomorrow,” Tony says. He’s got teams and teams and teams on this, but he hates the idea of not looking at every single place his own self. He’s been to a few, and it does something to his heart to be up close and personal with the searching—the fear of not finding him. The fear of finding him. The way time moves now, like it did when Peter was gone during those five years—slowly, and far too fast. Like something he has to push aside with his own hands. 

Morgan looks at him differently sometimes, and it scares him. 

Tony sits down next to May, a lump in his throat. 

“How are the legs?” she asks. “More progress from yesterday?”

“Think so,” he says. “Haven’t had an incident in about a week, but you know I haven’t been—too out there.” He clears his throat, tries to force the tears back. “I just wanna—you know. Be able to, uh. Run to him, when we see him.”

“You will,” she says. “Right alongside me.”

He can hear their unspoken thoughts, their fears they don’t want to say out loud, if only to spare the other. 

They sit there and go over plans for their next steps for about an hour, and Friday’s search keeps racing over the whole planet. Over and over and over again, looking for traces of Peter. Anything. Anywhere. Tony thought of searching elsewhere. Space. But he knows that’s just the insanity knocking at his door. Beck isn’t a Thanos figure. Beck isn’t a space traveler. Beck isn’t anything like that. He’s human sickness. He’s a face from Tony’s past, here trying to taint the future. 

May doesn’t fall asleep easy anymore, despite the long hours she keeps. Pepper is upstairs with Morgan, undoubtedly still working on the Displaced Blip Project or the updated Accords speech or anything else they’d been doing in the last eight months that Tony unceremoniously abandoned as soon as Peter was kidnapped. Tony rubs at his eyes, knows he needs to find his glasses wherever the hell he last lost them, and he’s just about to go say goodnight to his two girls before Friday’s search stops, interrupted by a red light security breach.

“What’s that?” May asks, as Tony’s heart leaps into his throat. 

“Fri, details?”

“_Seems like we’ve got movement on the roof, Boss. Security team is deployed._”

“Wait, wait a second,” Tony says, getting to his feet. He only becomes distinctly aware of the iron arm when he starts to feel like this—panicked, frenzied, almost like he did on that battlefield made of his own fucking home base—and he runs real fingers over cold titanium alloy. “Bring up the camera feed.”

Friday does, the image projecting on the floating screen. The night vision is on and Tony only just sees a foot limp out of view. 

Tony feels frozen, hysteria rising inside of him. “Do not deploy security. Tell them to stand down.”

“_Boss?_”

“Do it,” Tony says. He looks down, shaking, and holds out his hand to pull May to her feet. 

She looks at him like he’s losing his mind, and maybe he is, maybe he’s overreacting, but there’s the taste of metal in his mouth and his blood is boiling. “What is it?” she asks.

“I think it’s—I don’t know,” he says, too afraid to voice it, too afraid of false hope. He tugs on her hand. “C’mon.”

He’s ready to throw down for her if it’s anything other than what he’s thinking, even though he feels like he’s gonna drop with every step he takes down the hallway. They stand stupidly in the elevator, still holding hands, and Tony breathes hard through his mouth, waiting on an update from Friday that doesn’t come. 

It takes about ten thousand years to get to the roof, and he doesn’t think about Pepper and Morgan hearing the alert and worrying, he doesn’t think about that, because his mind is blank, focused on one thing, and as soon as he pushes the main door open and steps out into open air—his theory is confirmed. 

And his fucking heart drops.

It’s Peter. Peter, real, alive, breathing. But not even slightly the same person as he was the last time Tony saw him, and that’s apparent immediately. He’s dirty, grimy, still wearing that same destroyed suit, even more shredded than it was during his final battle. He’s got a grey hoodie on over it, which looks much too big for him. His hair is a mess, his hands shaking, and he seems half feral in the way he moves, the way he holds himself. He doesn’t seem to recognize them.

And he’s missing his left eye. 

There’s still blood plastered to his head all around the empty socket, and when he steps back into the light of one of the overheads, Tony can see just how gruesome it is. It’s _horrifying_ and Tony can barely recover from it as quickly as he needs to, purely gaping at the kid in front of him. 

“Oh my God,” May sobs, still holding tight to Tony’s hand.

Peter takes two steps back, breathing hard through his mouth, and Tony finally lets go of May so he can hold his hands up in front of him. His legs are throbbing like he’s run a mile, but it’s like something inside him takes over, as if he’d created a backup version of himself to handle something as awful as this. 

“Pete,” Tony breathes, softly, trying to present himself as completely nonthreatening. “Peter.”

Peter looks at him like he’s shocked Tony can speak, but he doesn’t say anything himself. He takes one step back, one step forward, one to the side, like he isn’t sure which way to go. 

“Baby,” May says, and she reaches towards him with one trembling hand. “Baby, you’re—you’re here. You’re with us, baby, you’re—you’re home.”

Peter stares, and Tony wonders where in the fuck he came from, how in fucking shit he got through downtown Manhattan without being seen, especially in this condition. Where the fuck did he come from? Where the fuck was he?

“Pete,” Tony says. “Come inside, come, we’ve gotta—we’ve gotta look at you—”

Helen isn’t here, not right now, he might have some nurses on staff but most likely not, and that’s a moron move on his part, there should have always been someone here just in case Peter showed up, _fucking always—_

Peter moves fast, stalks past them and through the open door. 

May mutters a curse and the two of them quickly follow. Peter is humming to himself, limping slightly, and he keeps reaching up, trying to cover the spot where his left eye once was. He stops, abruptly, in the middle of the hall leading to the elevator, and he presses his forehead to the wall, sucking in heavy breaths.

Tony’s heart is aching. “Pete—”

“Honey—”

May reaches out, touches Peter’s shoulder, and he flinches away violently, squeezing his one eye shut tight. Tony looks over at May without meaning to, sees the horror and pain in her eyes, and he steps closer. 

“Peter,” Tony says, watching the kid reach up and grip his own hair. He’s got blood under his nails. “Peter,” Tony says again. “Listen to my voice, bud. You’re here. You’re out, you’re not with him anymore. You’re safe, okay? We’ve gotta get someone to take a look at you, everything that’s—going on with you, okay?” He swallows hard, feeling dizzy as fuck and trying to stay focused. “We’re not gonna—we’re not gonna touch you until you want us to, okay?”

Peter doesn’t nod. Peter doesn’t say anything. He just abruptly starts walking again, trudging forward. He’s favoring his right leg, and Tony sees a cut in the suit around his ankle, one that looks too straight and too purposeful.

“Tony, my God,” May whispers, as they follow him. She’s pale, crying. “What do we do?”

“No idea,” Tony says, wiping away some of his own tears. He just knows he has to get ahold of Helen. Immediately. But he’s afraid to start calling people in and getting things going—May and Tony are the two people closest to Peter and he’s not reacting well to them at all.

Peter stops dead in front of the elevator. He’s holding one hand to the empty eye socket, and Tony wonders whether it hurts or he doesn’t want them to see it. He stares down at the elevator button, and when they catch up to him, May tentatively reaches out and presses it.

“Peter, talk to us, sweetheart, please,” May says, stepping closer to him, and Tony can tell she’s longing to just launch herself at him, wrap him up in her arms and hold him tight. He can feel it too. 

Peter’s face crumples and he shakes his head, immediately stepping into the elevator once it gets there. He huddles in the corner and Tony has no fucking idea which button to press. It’s gotta be medbay. But no one’s fucking there. The kid obviously wants to go somewhere, but Tony’s sure he doesn’t know where, either. 

Tony punches the floor for the med bay, and grabs his phone out of his pocket.

Peter is crying in earnest now, and it makes Tony want to do something. Hold him, hug him, fucking murder the shit out of Beck. All of the above.

His fingers shake as he composes his message to Pepper, listening to May whisper to Peter.

_Call Helen. Peter’s here. Extremely injured. Left eye pulledd out. Acting like a wildanimal. She Need to get here ASAP, he’s not in a good way. Pleas e get Hap to bring him clothesfrom his room to medbay, May and I there now._

“You’re okay, baby,” May says, hand hovering over Peter’s shoulder. “You made it, you’re okay.”

Peter starts sobbing, and it’s all Tony can do not to immediately wrap his arms around him. Peter rushes over to the doors and starts slamming on them with his fists, shaking the whole elevator. He leaves indents, over and over, and Tony can’t help it this time. 

“Peter, Peter,” Tony says, and he touches his back. Peter throws himself against the door to get away from him, covering his face with his hands and crying harder. It sounds like it’s coming from deep inside him, full of anguish, and tears race down Tony’s face. 

“Baby,” May says. “Please—”

“I’m sorry, kid, I’m sorry,” Tony says, about more than one thing, willing the elevator to go faster. “I’m sorry—we’re almost there. We’re almost there.”

Peter doesn’t hit the doors anymore, but he starts that humming thing again, shaking his head and pulling at his hair. The doors open with a ding and Peter stumbles out, almost falling, and May reaches out, grabbing his arm. He lets out a guttural sound, wrenching it away from her, and he falls down anyway, gathering his knees up to his chest right outside the glass med bay doors. 

“Peter!” May exclaims, and she skids down next to him, clearly unable to fathom why he doesn’t connect with her, react to her, and Tony doesn’t know either. But he can imagine, knowing what Beck was capable of.

Peter covers his face again, hiding in his knees and rocking back and forth. 

“Peter, it’s us, I promise, it’s not anybody else. It’s us, it’s us, you know you’re safe with me and Tony.”

Tony feels like he’s gonna fucking throw up.

Then, right on cue, a couple nurses rush out, gaping down at the scene in front of them. Peter lets out a horrific wail and crawls away, back towards the elevator. Tony immediately rushes around, standing in front of him and holding out his arms. He realizes then that it’s not a good idea for them to be here. Not good for Peter. _Shit_, he’s gotta keep better track of who’s in the building.

“Mr. Stark, is it—you found Spider-Man?”

“I can’t have anyone else around right now,” Tony says, quickly realizing any and all strangers are gonna be a complete no go. “You gotta clear out.”

The other nurse shifts, fear in his eyes. “It looks like he’s gonna need to be strapped down—”

Peter yells louder at that, sounds like someone is flaying him alive, and Tony steps closer to the nurses in a move to scare the shit out of them. He doesn’t even think about it. 

“Get out,” he snarls. “Right now, you can’t be here.”

They both nod, making a wide berth around where May is trying to soothe Peter. They rush down the hall, get into the elevator, and disappear. 

“They’re gone,” Tony says, turning and getting down on his aching knees, crawling to where Peter and May are. “They’re gone. Just us, okay? Just the three of us. Helen in a little bit, just to make sure you’re safe, buddy, alright? Promise. Promise.”

Peter makes himself stop yelling by covering his mouth, and the sound is muffled against his palm for a few moments before it tapers off into a whimper. 

His eye socket is—a fucking mess. But it looks fresh, like it happened relatively recently. Tony needs answers, but there are none, not right now.

His phone buzzes. He keeps his eyes on Peter, turned towards the wall and rocking back and forth, and Tony quickly pulls out his phone. 

_Happy’s coming up. Peter is probably in shock. Get him into the shower, just keep the eye from being under direct water. It might help to clear his head and get him to focus._

Tony nods to himself, blowing out a breath. Shower is a good idea, the kid is an absolute mess, but he has no idea how to get him there. There’s a big bathroom in the med bay, with three different shower stalls. Steps away. 

He quickly responds to Pepper.

_Tell Hap to go through back way, can’t spook the kid. _

Tony slips his phone into his pocket, watches as Peter twists around. The kid quickly gets to his feet, rubbing at his face with the back of his hand. He’s breathing hard through his mouth, hiccupping, pacing back and forth. Tony gets up too, reaches over to help May up, and he moves around to Peter’s left, trying to urge him towards the med bay. He knows he can’t quite see him if he doesn’t position himself properly, and he tries his best. 

“Pete,” Tony says, his voice low. “He’s not here. He’s not following you. He’s not gonna touch you again. I promise. I promise.”

Peter looks up, meets Tony’s eyes. His lower lip trembles. It fucking hurts, to look at him. There’s so much distrust in his gaze, blood all over him. Fear. Anger, hurt. But Peter—their Peter—he’s in there. He’s in there. They just have to earn him back. 

“This is all real,” Tony says, slowly. “We’re here. You’re with us. It’s not him, okay? It’s not. I promise you. Look. Look.” He holds out his hand, tentatively. Palm up. An offering.

Peter stares at his hand. It’s the real one, not the iron arm. Peter breathes hard, and cracks his jaw. He glances up at May, then at Tony, then at Tony’s hand again. 

“Take your time,” Tony says, unmoving, watching him closely. “It’s okay. It’s okay. We’re here, it’s okay, there’s no rush, buddy.”

Peter swallows hard, looks like he wants to cover up his eye socket again, and then he takes one, small, tentative step forward. He extends his hand, focusing hard, and pulls it back slightly when he thinks he’s getting too close. He glances up at Tony, and Tony nods, trying to be as still as he can.

“It’s okay,” he whispers. “It’s okay.”

Peter gently, gently, touches his hand down on Tony’s own. It feels like a light coming on, a new warmth, and he hears May make a noise of surprise and happiness beside him, although he’s too afraid to look away from Peter to see her face.

“There you go,” Tony says, as Peter’s trembling fingers close around Tony’s own. “I’ve got you.”

Peter stares, like he isn’t completely sure he should be doing what he’s doing.

“I’ve got you,” Tony says again, trying to drive home the point. He doesn’t think Peter remembers what _safe_ is, and they’ve gotta remind him. Show him.

“Baby, I’m gonna touch your arm, okay?” May whispers. “It’s just me. It’s just May.”

Peter holds tighter to Tony’s hand now, and watches her as she comes around to his other side. She moves slowly, like Tony did, not taking her eyes off his face. She glances at Tony like she’s afraid, but she softly touches Peter’s upper arm anyway, smoothing her hand up and over his shoulder. He lets her. Closes his eye softly before opening it again.

“Good,” Tony says, taking Peter’s hand with his other hand too, tracing his thumb over Peter’s knuckles. The gloves on the suit are barely hanging together. “We’re gonna go get you in the shower, kid, okay? We’re gonna wash you off, wait—wait for Helen to come help you. Okay? You’re safe. You’re safe with us.”

“We promise,” May says. 

Peter trembles, his eye darting around like he’s still unsure he’s doing the right thing, but something in them is too familiar to stop him. He takes short, tentative steps, and he keeps squeezing Tony’s hand, over and over. It’s strange, not hearing his voice when he’s right here, right next to him. The kid is always chatty, nothing like this.

May leans her head on Peter’s shoulder as they walk, slowly to the med bay doors, and Tony can hear her trying to hold in her tears.

“Friday, doors open,” Tony says, trying not to yell. They slide open and Peter gasps a little, reeling back slightly.

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” May says, and he’s letting her rub his back now without flinching away. “It’s okay.”

“Right turn,” Tony says, as they go through the doors. “There’s, uh, a couple stalls, we’re gonna go in the third one, it’s the biggest. We just need to take the shower head down, so we can use the water ourselves, don’t wanna—get any water where it shouldn’t be.” Tony hopes she realizes what he’s saying about Peter’s eye socket. They’ve gotta be careful, but he’s afraid of referencing it out loud.

“Okay,” May says. “Got it.”

Tony hears a small noise in the back of the darkened med bay as they head for the bathroom, and he sees Happy in the corner. He looks horrified, at the sight of Peter, momentarily forgetting what he was clearly gonna say. But then he blinks back to focus, and points towards the bathroom, holding his thumbs up. Tony thinks that means Peter’s clothes are in there, and he nods at him, mouthing a thank you.

May reaches out with one hand and opens up the bathroom door.

Peter sucks in a breath, humming to himself when he sees the tile floor. He squeezes Tony’s hand so tight that it hurts, but Tony grits his teeth, knowing it’s worth it to have gained his trust back. He glances up, sees Peter’s clothes folded on one of the benches back by the farthest stall, as if Happy read his mind.

“Right over here, Pete,” Tony says, making quick eye contact with May. “Right over here. Nobody else is coming in, just us, okay? Nobody else.”

Peter draws in a few measured breaths, his throat bobbing, and he looks like he keeps trying to crack his jaw again. They stop in front of the big stall, which is built like a whole separate room that Tony modeled after a spa he liked in California. May moves around and opens that door, and they slowly transfer inside. 

Tony’s had to get the kid out of his suit in a pinch due to horrible injuries in the past, but he still worries about Peter’s embarrassment, especially with the state he’s in. But the state he’s in also makes everything all the more pressing, and May starts pulling the hoodie off of him gently before she says anything.

Peter makes a little noise but he lets her, losing his grip on Tony’s hand pretty fast. 

“Just gonna take the suit off so we can wash you off, sweetheart,” May says. “We’ll leave your underwear on, just like that time you got that ridiculous rash and we had to put you in the tub—” She trails off, because Peter has absolutely no reaction. He just stands there, shaking, squeezing that one eye shut tight. The eyelid is still there where the left is gone, and it flutters like he doesn’t know how to control it anymore. 

Tony moves over to turn on the water while May peels the shredded suit off her nephew, and he takes down the showerhead so he can test the temperature. He kicks his shoes off and pushes them off to where the water won’t reach, and knows that he’s probably gonna get wet too. He doesn’t care. 

“Tony,” May says. “Can you hold his hand while I pull this off?”

“Yeah,” Tony says, fast, and he lets the showerhead go without thinking about it. It hits the wall kinda hard and Peter jumps, covering his face with his hand. May’s got him mostly out of the suit, and he’s standing there trembling in a pair of boxers, the suit pooling around his feet. Tony can see bruising on Peter’s shoulders, healing but still clinging to his skin. There are burns on his torso, cuts on his arms and legs. Tony swallows hard, feeling sick again. “Sorry, bud, sorry, sorry. Can I take your hand again?”

Peter doesn’t nod, doesn’t say anything, but he reaches into open air and flails his fingers around, like the need for human contact is becoming more important. Tony moves fast, taking his hand and holding him by the arm. He doesn’t hold him hard, doesn’t wanna scare him, and for the first time, Tony starts to truly wonder exactly what that fuckhead Beck did to his kid. 

“Step up, baby,” May says, leaning down and helping him step out of the suit. “There you go. One more time. There we go.” She holds onto Peter’s hand as she straightens back up, and she hangs the suit on the hook behind her. “Here, here. Let’s sit.” She toes her shoes off too, shoving them over to sit alongside Tony’s. 

Tony lets go of him again, which he’s loath to do, really, and then May helps Peter sit on the tile floor. Tony turns on the water, keeps the spray gentle, and he runs it over his hand until it feels warm enough. It reminds him of the early days, with Morgan, when she was a small and wailing baby, something else Tony worried about keeping alive.

“Okay,” Tony says, going to sit down next to him, thankful the showerhead has a long cord. He sees May is already on Peter’s right, and she glances up at Tony anxiously. 

“Let’s, uh, let’s wash his hair, first?” she asks, nodding. 

“Let’s just be careful,” Tony says, still afraid of mentioning Peter’s missing eye out loud. The kid has his legs pulled up to his chest again, but his eye is open this time, and he’s rocking back and forth a little bit. “Okay, uh, everything’s—right behind you—”

“Got it,” May says, grabbing at the shampoo bottle. 

Tony kneels behind Peter, helps May lather up the shampoo in his hair, and Tony can feel the dirt, the filth, and he kneads his fingers into Peter’s scalp as easily as he can to try and get it all out. When it’s time for the water, both Tony and May hold their hands up to shield his eye socket as Tony runs the water over his head. Tony traces his fingers through Peter’s hair, washing the shampoo out, and they go through the process one more time because his hair is so dirty. 

Peter just sits there, lets them. His breathing starts to even out.

May puts soap on a washcloth and both of them start muttering things to him, inane things, stupid stories and memories that flow out of their mouths and weave between the two of them in an attempt to keep Peter calm. They talk about things that happened before, before Thanos and the hell of losing the kid, and after he came back. Things that he probably knows already. They talk about things that have happened since he’s been gone. Dumb things, soap operas, the man that hit on May at the corner market, who thought she was dating Tony when he showed up behind her. 

Then they just start saying things. Phrases, as they wash the dirt away. 

“There we go, sweetheart,” May says, running the washcloth over his knee. “There we go.”

“You’re okay, Pete,” Tony says, gently washing a cut on his wrist that also looks new and purposefully made. “You’re okay. You’re okay.” 

“You’re doing good,” May says. “You’re alright.”

“Just relax,” Tony says. “We’ve got you, it’s okay.”

His own heart is aching with every bit of this, and he sniffles, chasing away the lather of soap May left behind on Peter’s shoulders. Tony adjusts the way he’s kneeling and sits criss-cross instead. 

They’re really careful with the blood plastered around his eye socket, and Peter hums to himself, wincing a little bit. But they get it all off, which makes it look much better than it did before. But that isn’t saying much. It’s still hard to look at, knowing what Peter went through to get to this point. Tony feels fucking ill just thinking about it.

They’ve gotta do something about the rest of it, but Tony doesn’t even wanna think about it until Helen shows up. 

Tony watches as Peter’s hand slowly moves over, taking May’s in his own. She chews on her lower lip, glancing up at Tony and then back at Peter again, and she leans in, kissing him on the cheek.

“Thank you, baby,” she whispers. “Thank you.”

That’s when Tony notices that Peter is crying. He quickly runs his hand through the kid’s damp hair, but he doesn’t get to look at him for long before Peter is turning and burying his face in Tony’s shoulder. He’s suddenly wracked with sobs, and he clutches at May’s hand.

Tony drops the showerhead, and it sits up like a sprinkler behind them. May scoots closer, wrapping her arm around Peter, crying herself. Tony feels like he’s fucking breaking in half, everything from this past month crashing down on him, everything from the past hour too clear in its horror. Peter clutches at him, letting out these deep, wounded sounding howls, and Tony runs his hands through his hair, wishing to God he could do anything to make this better.

“We’ve got you,” Tony whispers, holding him, grabbing onto May too. “Shhh, Pete, it’s okay. It’s okay. You’re safe.”

“Oh, sweetheart,” May gasps. “Just talk to us, please, baby. Please.”

Peter makes the smallest sound, like he wants it to be a word, but it just won’t come out. More sobs follow, and he grabs at Tony’s shirt with his free hand. 

They just hold him. 

~

Peter is dark patches. 

One, where half of the world should be.

He can’t see them both. He needs to see them both. They’re real, he knows that now, he knows that, they weren’t ever like this when He brought them around. When He wore their faces. 

Now that Peter knows they’re real he needs contact, needs it or he’ll fall through the hole in the ground that keeps opening up, opening up and wailing at him, trying to drag him back down. It’s dark down there. It’s cold down there. There are tendrils set to hang him down there. 

He’s here. He’s here. He’s gotta keep reminding himself. Here, not there. Here, not there. 

When his tears finally taper off he doesn’t wanna move, can’t bring himself to move. Been running forever. Forever, and not enough, too short, not fast enough. He tries to pop his ear again. He squeezes May’s hand. Tony running his fingers through his hair feels like some kind of miracle.

There’s still the rushing in his ears. He covers his eyes again. Eye. Eye. He covers his eye. And the gaping hole in his face. 

He’s in a deep well. He needs to hide. He needs to hide. He’ll find him. He’ll find him. 

The room warps in darkness. Buzzes like the radiator. Peter can almost hear Him laughing. His boots on steel. Clang. Clang. The generator rattling. A drone hovering. The rush of an oncoming illusion.

No, no, no, no.

He hums to himself, trying to ground himself here. Here. The water sounds like the pipes dripping. No, no. 

“C’mon, Pete,” Tony says, softly, the kind of soft he sounded like when Peter came back. In those eight months. Those eight months, his life before. _Before._ “C’mon, let’s get out of here. You’re all clean. Let us dry you off, get you comfortable.”

“We’ve got clothes in here already,” May says, her voice like velvet against his shoulder, and he lets out a breath. 

No panic, no panic. Safe. Safe.

His voice is lodged in his throat. He’s in a deep well. He needs to hide. He’s in acid, he’s screaming in pain. No more eye. No more eye. He’s inside himself, small, shrunken. Stuck. Stuck. Screaming. 

_WAKE UP_

He feels May move away from him, extract herself, and he glances over his shoulder but darkness, darkness, half of the world snuffed out. Then there’s softness around his shoulders, and she’s rubbing his arms up and down.

“Let’s get up, baby,” May whispers, close to his ear. 

They help him change. He closes his eye during, braces his hand on the wall and can’t stop trembling, can’t stop shaking. He remembers. 

_YOU’RE DISGUSTING, PETER, JESUS. LIKE A FIVE YEAR OLD. HOW COULD SHE EVER WANT YOU? NO ONE WILL. GOOD THING I’VE GOT YOU. _

Embarrassment. Shame. The person he was before is trapped. Has to hide. Before he can do it. Before that moment. Before. Before.

“Those aren’t his,” May says. 

“What?” Tony replies.

“The ones he’s wearing. I buy his underwear, those aren't...”

She trails off.

_HERE YOU GO, HERE, YOU’RE GODDAMN DISGUSTING. WHAT ARE YOU, A CHILD? CHRIST. YEAH, I’VE GOT BETTER FASHION SENSE THAN YOU. DON’T FUCK THOSE UP TOO OR I’LL BE PISSED._

They get him dressed. Clothes he left here, before the trip. The trip. London. Different then. Different then.

Peter finds their hands, and then once they’re holding him, he drifts. Not sleep, no, he hasn’t really slept in what feels like years, but there’s so many different rooms in his head now, where he can lock this current self away. 

Sometimes fear can drag him back. 

The next thing he knows he’s in the outer med lab, and Helen is there, approaching him. But her face—her face keeps warping into His, and Peter can hear his maniacal laughter, can see his hands—

_WHY DO YOU KEEP PULLING AWAY FROM ME, HUH? DON’T YOU KNOW THE DRILL BY NOW?_

Peter didn’t often get the upper hand. He did sometimes, but he was drugged up to his ears every day, strapped down with something that even he couldn’t get out of. Peter bit Him three times. Hit Him six. Kicked Him three. Each one was met with something worse. He broke Peter’s webshooters. He kept his mask from him. No Karen. No calling out. No help. 

No eye no eye no eye no eye—

“Peter,” Helen says, His voice permeating through her own. “Peter,” both of them say. “I need to take a look.”

Peter stumbles back, his leg still fucking killing him, and his hands are free now, they’re free, that strength still flows through his veins like it has since that fateful day in the Oscorp lab. But is it her? It’s her, or it’s not? It’s her, right?

She morphs. Peter hears that rushing, all around them, and the walls start to chip away like they’re caught waiting for an oncoming tornado. He could lash out, hurt her, prove to himself that it’s Him, tricking him again, one last time. But it could be her. It could be her. He can’t hurt her if it’s really her. He can’t.

“Peter,” she says, stepping closer.

He can’t make up his mind, only tastes the panic and paranoia all that time with Him injected into Peter’s veins. He just crumples and turns, grasping at Tony and burying his face in his chest. He completes the darkness when he closes his eye. 

“Hey, hey,” Tony whispers, arms coming up around him.

Peter wants to speak. He wants to beg. His voice is still dust, still an unfinished puzzle, and he doesn’t know how to find the pieces. He just groans when he hears Helen speaking. _This could be Him, Tony, this could be Him. Here to take me back!_ Peter hates himself. He hates himself.

The darkness has claws.

Tony turns them around so he’s between Peter and Helen, and he cradles the back of Peter’s head. They’re showing him the tenderness he didn’t get, that he nearly forgot existed, and it makes Peter freeze. He can feel May’s hand, too, caressing up and down his arm.

“Listen,” Tony says. “Listen to me, alright? I know that you’re—I know that you don’t trust anything right now—”

_You, you! I trust you! And May!_ They’re warm where everything else is cold. They’re solid and real.

“—but I promise. I promise. She’s gonna help you. She’s gonna. And we’ll be right here.”

“We won’t leave you for one second,” May whispers, curving her hand over Peter’s shoulder.

The walls rearrange themselves. There are eyes in the darkness, blinking like wolves in green wilderness. They’re gonna tear him apart.

He groans, sucking in a couple gaping breaths, and shuffles closer to Tony. He tries to make himself small. 

The warehouse echoes in his memory. Street sounds. People that couldn’t hear him. People passing by, that didn’t know the kind of pain he was experiencing. They couldn’t hear, they couldn’t hear and Peter didn’t know why. _Help me, please! Help me, I’m lost! I’m lost, they’re looking for me! Bring me home!_ No one. Nothing.

Tony grips the back of Peter’s neck, whispers in his ear. “We’ll be right next to you,” he says, softly, as May rubs Peter’s back. “The whole time. Anything hurts too much, it’ll stop. Just squeeze our hands to let us know, okay? Okay, bud?”

He doesn’t ask for words, and it worries Peter that they’ve already given up on his voice. Mute, blind in one eye. That’s not Spider-Man. That’s not even Peter Parker.

“Maybe we should try that sedative we know works—” Helen starts.

Peter shoves himself backwards at that, away, away—He drugged him so often that Peter doesn’t know how his goddamn brain works anymore, and Tony tries to grab at him but Peter moves for the wall, trying to shut them out.

“Or maybe…”

“Let’s just try and...take care of it quick, huh?” May asks. “It’s not surgery or anything, let’s just—”

“You just need to pack it, right?” Tony asks, getting closer to Peter again. “For now?”

“For now,” Helen says. “Okay. Okay.”

Peter hears the rushing in his ears. He shakes his head. No sedatives. No drugs. _No, no, no, not again. Not again._

“C’mon, bud, I promise,” Tony whispers. “We’ve got you. No drugs, no drugs.” Like he’s reading Peter’s mind.

Peter deflects. He hides. Tony still urges him, gently, but Peter lets the darkness take over. He’s in a pit, he’s curled up in a place he created in his own head. One of the rooms.

_WAKE UP, WAKE UP, WHERE THE FUCK ARE YOU? YOU CAN’T AVOID ME, PETEY. IT’S JUST ME AND YOU. WHAT WOULD PRECIOUS TONY THINK OF THAT?_

Peter trembles. It’s like he’s underwater, and he knows she’s doing something to his eye. Lack of eye. Eye socket. He touches his eye in this place where he is and he’s got both of them, here. How long will that last? Will he get to keep it in some dreams, too? The ones that aren’t nightmares, bursting out of his chest like that really old movie—

“Peter,” May’s voice whispers. “Honey.”

He tunes back in. There are more lights on in here now, but farther away from him, which he’s grateful for. His senses have been completely and utterly out of whack since about week two with Him, and only got worse when he lost the eye. Lost? Taken. Stolen. _Squashed._

He sees Helen, off by the counter, and she’s zipping up a bag. Peter reaches up and touches the dark side of his face. There’s a bandage there now, and he quickly pulls his hand away. 

_NO, WE’RE GONNA LEAVE IT LIKE THAT. I LIKE TO SEE MY GOOD WORK._

“All good for now,” Tony says, gently. He’s holding Peter’s left hand and Peter has to twist, to look at him. Tony notices, and there are lines of pain in his face that make Peter’s heart ache. May brings his right hand up to her mouth, planting a kiss there.

A hole opens up in the back of med bay. He can hear the stirring back there, can hear the growling and spitting. Different worlds. Sucking him in. Drowning, drowning. 

Peter jumps off the table all three of them are sitting on, rushing for the hallway. He has to get away from it, he has to, he has to, they’re coming for him here, now, too. He pushes the doors open and stops in the hallway just outside, covering his mouth with his hands.

Panic, panic, panic. Shut it down.

“Honey,” May says. “She’s gotta check you out, sweetheart.”

Didn’t she do that? Didn’t she do that already? How long were they in there? It’s not safe. It’s not safe. He can hear that rushing noise again, like water is coming to wash them away. Drown him. Drown him.

He turns towards the wall, plugging up his ears. He squeezes his eye shut tight, and she did something to the other, there’s something in the socket. He feels like ripping it out.

They’re behind him again and his legs tremble. Wham, wham, wham, and every time Peter thought the pain was the most excruciating he’s ever felt, Beck was able to one up himself.

Beck. Peter rarely said his name after the first week, after he tried pleading to his better nature. But he knew, after too much time, that he didn’t have one. That guy he pretended to be, when they first met—that guy was an illusion too. Quentin Beck, who acted like he knew Peter’s heart, who spoke softly and pretended to understand. That guy was dead before he ever got to live.

Tony touches his shoulder. He gently tugs his hand away from his ear. 

“How about she finishes the checkup while you’re on your own home turf, huh? Your sheets are clean. I got you a new comforter. We can regulate the lights in there a lot better, I installed those ambient sounds, we can make it however cold or hot you want. How’s that, buddy, huh?”

Peter sighs. Blows out a breath. 

_I love you, I love you, please don’t let him hurt me. Not again. I can’t fight him. I can’t fight him._

Peter knows. He knows. He should be stronger than this. 

“That sounds like a good idea, baby,” May says, as he slowly pulls his other hand free too.

_I love you so much. Please don’t let me go again._

No, no. Be better than that. Be better.

_YOU’RE NOT SHIT, KID. YOU’RE NOTHING, YOU’RE NOT A GODDAMN HERO._

Peter can hear him laughing. He’s in the walls. He’s here_he’sherehe’sherehe’shere—_

Breathe. Breathe. You’ve gotta go. You’ve gotta go. Home turf. Home turf. Tony’s right. He’s right. Good idea. Good idea. Home field advantage, Peter doesn’t know much about sports but he knows that much.

He reaches up to touch the bandage on his eye socket, running his thumb over it, and he nods without thinking about it. He can see the tracks in his mind, the way he needs to go and the ways his mind is pushing him. Like multiple highways spanning out in all different directions, wild colors, bright and blaring, yanking at him. 

He nods again, to affirm his decision.

“Okay, bud,” Tony says. “Just one floor up and we’re there. That’s it.” He steps aside, and Peter is too close to everything, too far, and the lack of vision on his left side of destroying his depth perception. “May, lemme just—tell Helen the plan, alright?”

Peter sucks in a breath and turns around as Tony leaves him, and watches as he goes back through the med bay doors. Can the black hole take him too? Take him right out of Peter’s life? Kill him like he almost got killed before? It came so close, and the entire time Pete was with Beck—the whole time, one thing, he wanted one thing, he tried so hard, but no, no—

May takes Peter’s right hand and threads their fingers together. She reaches up and touches the side of his face that he can’t see. Her hand disappears into darkness, but he can still feel it. The love in the way she holds him. 

“I know you’d be talking to us if you could, sweetheart,” she says, tracing her thumb back and forth over his cheek. 

He tries. He closes his eye and tries. Like it’s actually a real, physical thing lodged in his throat. He tries to remember the last thing he said.

It was _no._ The last thing he said was _no._

Beck was coming at him again. He was gonna take the other one, in the same way, all that pain. Then complete darkness, it’d have him, and then he, and then—

Peter lurches forward and clings onto May, hugging her tight. An anchor. Keeping him from floating out to sea. The angry waves are ready to swallow him. Those memories are red. They sting, they have a stench. He’s sick. He’s sick. 

“It’s okay, sweetheart,” she whispers, rubbing his back, holding him as close as her slender arms will let her. “It’s okay, angel. You’re back now, you’re back with us. It’s alright. It’s alright.”

He tries again, to say something, _anything_ to replace the world where there was a last word he said and he never spoke again—but he can only make a pathetic sounding groan, which makes her hold him tighter. Peter hears the med bay doors open, and for the first time since he got back, he can hear the measure of someone’s heartbeat. Tony’s, as he approaches, and it rises and rises. 

“Hey, we okay?” he asks, anxiety in his voice.

Peter hates making him sound like that. Worried. There was a time before this when Tony was the priority, his recovery, his new, difficult, everyday life. But now Peter’s stuck. He’s stuck. He can’t find his way back there. To the way things used to be. 

Because now he has his own wall, like Tony did. His own day when everything changed. Tony lost an arm. Peter lost an eye.

It was taken.

“We’re okay,” May says, and gently pulls back. 

~

Tony’s been catatonic before, in times of deep stress. It feels like, with him, his response is either that or too much obsessive work that usually results in less than what brought him there to begin with. But he went catatonic after they told him his parents were dead—just slid down along the wall in the living room and didn’t move from there until Rhodey found him. And even then, it was like he was somewhere else, somewhere deep inside of himself, being led along, made being to eat, being made to face the new world he wanted to have no part in. 

Then again, when he woke up after lashing out at Steve Rogers. When it hit him that the dream wasn’t a dream, the nightmare was his actual fucking life now—and Peter was dead. He laid there and fell into a silence that even Pepper had a hard time dragging him out of. He didn’t want to be in that room. He didn’t want to be in his own head. He didn’t want to be anywhere anymore.

He knows that’s what Peter is doing right now. His eye goes a little glassy as they’re making their way up to his room, and he only tunes back in once Tony opens up the door and turns on the lights. He adjusts the lighting and turns up the heat, and only does that last part because he keeps seeing goosebumps coming up on the kid’s arms. But once they get him in bed and mention Helen, he goes again. He falls away.

It scares the shit out of Tony. He knows it’s born out of fear, of sadness, of desperation. Of deep, overwhelming pain.

Tony doesn’t know what the hell to tackle first.

“Uh, he needs to eat,” Tony says, once he’s texted Helen to come up. “Uh.” He glances at May, on Peter’s other side. They keep surrounding him, like they’re protecting him from any oncoming threat. Or trying to.

“Chicken soup?” May asks. “Maybe grilled cheese?”

Tony glances at Peter’s face, sees his eye briefly light up. “That sounds good, right bud?”

Peter gives a slow blink, and in this new state, Tony takes that as a yes. He kicks himself for not thinking of food sooner, and he knows May is too, but it’s fucking hard to be level-headed in this situation. He almost prefers Peter freaking out as opposed to this, this catatonia in anticipation of Helen looking at him again. 

Tony remembers the thing May said about the boxers, and his stomach plummets. He feels dizzy for a second, his whole world shifting, and he looks up, meets May’s eyes.

He doesn’t say it. He doesn’t say it. 

“What?” she mouths, tracing her fingers up and down Peter’s wrist. 

He can’t say it. He knows she must have thought it too. When she said that thing about the boxers. And Beck is a goddamn fucking lunatic who’s capable of _anything._ And he had Peter for a month. 

“Uh, lemme just—message Hap the, uh, dinner order, here,” Tony says, pulling out his phone. He quickly sends the text, his fingers shaking, and his own vision is going blotchy with panic. 

A moment later, there’s a knock at the door.

Peter doesn’t even react, which shows the extent of his catatonia, and Tony pats his knee, walking over to let Helen in. His legs feel like jelly again, like those first few weeks after he woke up when he couldn’t take two steps without dropping, and he tries to breathe normally. 

Helen is standing there when he opens the door, and she’s got two medical bags and one of the travel carts he made up for situations like these. The kid was never a big fan of the med bay, even when things were normal and the world hadn’t ended yet.

Tony rushes into her space before she can move into the room. 

“I need you, to, uh. To, uh, check. Everything. To make sure that—that something didn’t—didn’t happen, but God, Helen, don’t be too invasive, please, just—I just need you to make _sure_ that nothing, uh, nothing—” Tears spring to his eyes and spill over fast, and he shakes his head, covering his mouth.

“I understand,” she says. “I know what you mean. I’m gonna check for everything, alright? As much as he’ll let me.”

“He’s nearly fucking knocked out right now,” Tony gasps. “Just—like he was earlier, when you packed his eye socket.”

“That’s the shock,” Helen says. “That’s everything in his head. It’s normal, Tony, and it’s a defense mechanism. He doesn’t really trust me right now but he’s letting it happen because you and his aunt are present. You were able to win him back. Other people will too.”

“Okay,” Tony says, wiping his eyes. “Okay.”

Tony is pure stress and despair after that, pacing the room as Helen does her thing, and he hones in on May’s soft murmurs to Peter, reassurances. They have to stand him up, turn him around, sit him back down again, and Tony fucking hates this, hates taking away the kid’s privacy, hates manhandling him, hates the way he closes his eye tight when things are getting to be far, far too much. 

It goes on for about fifteen minutes, maybe more, maybe a hundred years because that’s what it feels like. The kid whimpers a little bit, near the end, and Tony’s heart shatters, bits and pieces all over. His hands ball into fists at the very thought of what happened—all the possibilities—and he’s gone half catatonic himself when Helen pulls him aside towards the door.

“Sorry,” he mutters, his eyes cutting over to May as she brushes Peter’s hair back, kissing his cheek. “Sorry, I was, uh—Jesus, sorry.”

“What you were worried about, there’s—there’s no evidence of it. I still wanna check his clothes, I got them from the bathroom, but I’m ninety nine percent sure we’re—we’re safe on that front.”

Tony feels like all the air’s been knocked out of him. “Thank you,” he says, as if she stopped it herself. “Thank you.”

“His legs were broken multiple times,” she says, pain in her eyes. “But they were...broken in such a way that they were able to heal back the right way. Arms too. His healing, it’s—this man, he must have known about it, the extent of how it works.”

Tony sets his jaw, feels a flare of anger in his chest. 

“His right leg is giving him a little bit of a problem, but it just seems like the muscle, for now. I bandaged up a few open wounds, the one on his ankle, one on his wrist, the other on his collarbone. He has a lot of scarring, it’s healing nicely, but there was—a lot done, with sharp instruments. The eye was clearly carved out.”

She keeps her voice low, thank fuck, and Tony doesn’t know when the hell he’s gonna be able to catch May up, considering they’re both attached at the hip with the kid. 

“Knowing what kind of man Beck is, we can conclude that most of the damage is psychological,” Helen says. “He definitely needs to speak to someone about it, when he’s able to speak again. Someone that isn’t one of us. What about Sam? Sam’s trained in this type of thing, he can keep Peter’s identity secret, and Peter already knows him. It’ll be easier getting him used to him.”

Tony glances back at Peter and May again. The kid seems to be a little more animated, like he’s reassured by Helen being closer to the door. 

“Yeah, I’ll—I’ll call him,” Tony says. “And the, uh, speaking thing, that’s—there’s nothing wrong with his throat, or his vocal cords?”

“No,” she says. “He’s been making other noises. That’s also psychological. Defense.”

Tony blows out a breath. 

“I’ll stay on tonight,” she says, nodding at him. “And for the next couple days, alright? I know my bed’s made up.”

“Thank you,” Tony says, trying to properly convey how grateful he actually is. “Really.”

“Of course,” she says. “You know I’ve always adored him. Hard not to.”

He knows that for sure.

She pushing her way out into the hallway when Happy shows up, with Pepper and Morgan on his heels. Tony’s heart drops again, and he gives Helen a brief goodnight before he turns his attention on the others. He doesn’t even know what the hell time it is, but it’s absolutely too late for his six year old daughter to be awake. 

He steps one foot into the hallway and he hears Peter make a noise of protest. He turns, sees the kid looking at him with a wide eye, and he’s definitely not catatonic anymore. 

“I’m not going anywhere, bud,” Tony says, pointing over at him. “Promise. Your food’s here, that’s all. Gimme just a second.”

He closes the door a little, but keeps his foot shoved inside so Peter knows he isn’t leaving.

Happy’s got a whole tray set up, and there’s clearly additions from Morgan in the form of the cookies they made earlier this afternoon. There are six there, and Peter’s favorite apple cider, two grilled cheese sandwiches and a big bowl of chicken noodle soup. 

“Went a little nuts,” Happy says. “Is, uh—should we still stay out—”

“I wanna see Petey,” Morgan says, weaving around Pepper’s leg and moving to stare up at Tony.

His heart lurches, and he reaches down, taking her hand. He was worried, in the beginning, that she’d be afraid of the iron arm, but she doesn’t ever act like it’s anything out of the ordinary. “Not right now, babycakes,” he whispers. “Petey’s sick, but as soon as he’s better, I’ll let you see him, okay?”

“She’s been asking,” Pepper says, worry in her eyes.

Tony glances back into the room, and Peter is bent towards May now, listening intently to whatever she’s saying. Tony scoots a little more out into the hallway. “He’s, uh—severely traumatized is too tame.”

“I’m gonna go over all the cameras to see if I can track how he got here,” Happy says. “Poor kid, honestly, Jesus.”

"Yeah, let's get on code red, too, even though I don't think...Beck would dare come here," Tony says, keeping himself from cursing in front of his daughter.

He thinks about how Peter managed to get onto the roof. His legs, broken—so many goddamn times, Helen couldn’t even put a number on it. But the roof would get him closest to Tony, and he knew that. He made it up there, because he knew that. 

This is the first time that Tony isn’t facing him since he got back, and it hits him in a wave. He cracks his jaw and nearly crumples, covering his face with his hand. The tears are hot and they fall freely, his horror and sadness nearly taking him down. He sobs loudly, and it sounds awful.

“Tony—”

“Honey—”

“_DAD—!_”

Morgan hates it when he cries. She wraps her arms around his leg and Pepper converges on him, while Tony assumes Happy stands there, helplessly, with the tray.

“You gotta give Pete his dinner,” Tony gasps, hiccups, and Pepper rubs his shoulder. “No, I mean—I gotta. Because he’s—he’s afraid of everybody else.”

“It’s—sweetheart—”

Tony knows Pepper was gonna say _it’s alright_, but it’s not, and she knows that. There’s nothing really to say. It’s one of the worst things that ever happened to them.

“I’m sorry,” he says, wiping his eyes. He leans in, kissing Pepper on the cheek. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry. This isn’t—this isn’t about me.” He kneels down with a groan and wraps his arms around Morgan, pressing kiss after kiss after kiss to her cheek, because he’s gotta show his kids that he loves them whenever he can. Because look what can happen. 

He brushes her hair out of her face, and straightens back up, ushering Happy forward. He takes the tray from him, and looks at Pepper. “I’m gonna stay with him tonight, alright?” he asks. 

“Of course,” she says. She leans in again, pecking him on the lips. 

“I’ll keep you updated,” he says, sniffling like a child. He doesn’t like acting like this in front of them, but he figures it’s better than acting like this in front of Peter.

“I love you,” Pepper says.

“Me too,” Morgan adds.

“Me three,” Happy says, shrugging.

“Love you all,” Tony says, clearing his throat. 

“And tell him we love him too,” Happy says.

Tony holds eye contact with him, and nods, unable to respond for fear of bursting into tears again. They leave, and he goes back inside Peter’s room.

“Sorry,” he says, pushing the door shut with his foot. “I just had to—” He startles when he sees Peter in the middle of the bed, knees drawn up to his chest, rocking back and forth. He’s crying openly, louder than he has in a while, and May is sitting anxiously next to him. She looks at Tony in horror, shaking her head.

“I couldn’t—” she starts, opening her mouth and closing it again. “I just don’t know—”

If Tony feels like this, he knows she’s feeling ten times worse. Peter is her _baby_. The light of her life. And she looks completely and utterly at a loss.

He quickly puts the tray down on Peter’s dresser and rushes over, the bed dipping when he sits back down next to him. 

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” May says, starting to cry herself. “I just—I was just telling him how much we love him, nothing—nothing really happened—”

Peter cries harder, gripping his own hair tight and anxious.

“I’m sorry, baby,” she says, hand on his knee. “I’m sorry.”

“No, it’s not you,” Tony says. “You know it’s not. He’s just—he’s in his own head, there’s—there’s too much going on, he’s overwhelmed.” May nods and goes still, and Peter’s sobs are quiet but incredibly painful to see wracking his shoulders. 

Tony feels like he goes insane, for a second. Like time slows down and it’s do or die but he has no idea what the fuck to _do_—one of his favorite people in the whole goddamn universe is in excruciating pain and he tries to remember all the times Peter’s laughed, all the things that make him light up, all the memories that feel lost now, but he has to hold onto them, he_has to—_

_God, Mr. Stark, you cannot sing. You can do a lot of stuff, but you...you really can’t sing._

Tony can barely clear his throat before the song is coming out. “Why...do you build me up, buttercup, baby, just to let me down...and mess me around...and then worst of all...you never call, baby, when you say you will...but I love you still, I need you...more than anyone, darling, you know that I have from the start...so build me up, oh...buttercup, don’t break my heart…”

He trails off, and the silence is deafening. Silence, because Peter isn’t crying anymore. Tony is breathing through his mouth like a moron, afraid to keep going.

But then May pipes up. “I’ll be over at ten, you told me time and again, but you’re late, I wait around and then...I head to the door, I can’t take anymore, it’s not you, you let me down again—”

She glances at Tony in a panic, begging him to join her, and then Tony notices that Peter is slowly, surely, looking up.

They both sing at the same time. “Baby baby, try to find...a little time, and I’ll make you mine...I’ll be home, I’ll be beside the phone waiting for you...ooohh oohh...oohh oohh…”

Peter’s staring outright now, cheeks tear-stained but no more coming.

They get louder. Not at all in tune, but singing together like their lives depend on it. “Why do you build me up! Buttercup, baby, just to let me down! And mess me around! And then worst of all—worst of all—you never call me when you say you will—say you will—but I love you still! I need you! More than anyone, darling, you know that I have from the start! So build me up, OH, buttercup, don’t break my heart!”

They both trail off, breathing hard, and then. Peter laughs. It’s a snort laugh, teary, still full of hurt, but there’s a brightness there, too, that wasn’t there before. And Tony’s heart soars. May smiles like the sun’s come out anew, and Tony leans in, kissing Peter’s temple as the kid laughs again, sniffling a little bit. 

“Yeah, I don’t remember the rest,” May says, taking Peter’s hand when he reaches it out towards her. 

“Me either,” Tony says, blowing out a breath in relief. “Which I’m sure is probably for the best.” He ruffles Peter’s hair gently, relishing his small, lovely smile. “You wanna eat now, buddy?”

Peter nods, eye flicking over to the tray in interest. 

~

They’re able to get him to eat, after that. He almost seems tentative, and Tony wonders if that’s due to some bullshit Beck pulled on him, too. He doesn’t look like he’s lost much weight, and the unspoken details are fucking haunting. Tony just tries to hold onto that smile they were able to get. 

When Peter finishes eating, Tony finally checks the time and realizes it’s goddamn _five in the morning_. He figures it’s gonna be difficult to get the kid to sleep, and he encourages May to send her boss a message about missing tomorrow and a few more days (for now) due to a family emergency. 

Peter settles down once the lights are adjusted, and they tuck him in and make sure he’s warm enough, because he keeps trembling. Tony kicks his shoes off again, and crosses his arms over his chest. He’s on Peter’s left and May is on his right, and she scoots down a little lower, bracing her elbow on Pete’s pillow. 

Tony can’t see the kid’s good eye from here, and May glances up at him, mouthing _I THINK HE’S ASLEEP._

Tony can’t quite tell, from this angle, but he nods at her all the same. He needs to bring a few easy chairs in here, so they have a place to sleep when he decides he does not want these two losers in his bed, and Tony longs for that moment, when Peter insists that he’s almost an adult like he so often liked to do. Before. Before Beck. 

“Can you sleep like that?” May whispers, so softly that he can barely hear her. 

“Yeah,” Tony says. He’s got one pillow behind his back, and the whole room is warm, even the wall behind him. He’s slept in a lot worse. “Don’t worry about me.”

He’s felt close to May for a while, but he feels a particular kinship to her right now, over the lengths that the two of them would go for the spiderkid between them. 

“Friday,” Tony whispers. “Adjust lights down a little more. Ambient rose, uh...ten percent.”

The lights lower more, the rosy tint calming and one of Peter’s favorites. 

Tony closes his eyes, trying to get some sleep before Peter wakes back up. They’ve got a long road ahead of them.


	2. have you chosen your time?

Tony’s dream dies in his head when he hears Peter struggling. He abruptly wakes himself up, squeezing his eyes shut tight before he opens them. He sunk down lower onto the bed than he intended to—he got the kid a California King when they first made him a place here, but he wanted him to have as much space last night as he needed to. Now, Tony pushes himself up, glances down and sees him thrashing.

He’s still not making words, but he’s drenched in a cold sweat, shaking violently, the sheets and comforter tangled up in his limbs. He’s reaching up, clawing at the bandage on his stolen eye, twisting his body in a way that looks like it hurts. May is still knocked out beside him, a victim of the lack of sleep she’s been getting lately, and she’s nearly hanging off the bed, clearly in the same pursuit Tony was in—to give Peter as much room as he needed. They wanted to be close, but not overbearing. They wanted to be exactly what he needed, though that’s hard to determine from moment to moment.

“Fri—lights, uh, soft mulberry at fifty percent please,” Tony says. The room goes a purple tint and gets a little brighter, and Tony tentatively touches Peter’s shoulder. “Pete. Pete, bud. Hey. Hey, wake up, you’re alright.”

Peter makes another noise, still thrashing wildly, and that wakes May up. She looks like she was having her own nightmare, and her eyes quickly focus on Tony.

“What’s happen—nightmare?” she asks, scooting up and quickly answering her own question.

“Yeah—Pete, it’s Tony, alright? Tony and May, we’re both here, nobody else, alright?” He reaches up, gently brushing Peter’s hair back from his forehead. “Jesus, he’s fucking freezing.”

“It’s so warm in here,” May says, worry in her words. She quickly pulls the covers up over him tighter, rubbing her hand over his chest. “Sweetheart, wake up, honey. Wake up.”

Peter claws at his own throat like he can’t breathe, and it freaks Tony the fuck out. He’s gasping, choking, eyebrows furrowing like he’s in the midst of a fight for his life.

“C’mon, Pete,” Tony says, shaking his arm, a little harder than he was before. His heart is beating fast, and Peter is wheezing like he’s choking. “Pete. Hey. Hey. Wake up.”

May reaches up and starts patting his cheek, with some force behind it. “Peter. Peter.”

Peter twists onto his side, facing Tony, and he sounds like he’s gagging. No air going in.

“Jesus, _Peter!_” Tony exclaims, holding onto the kid’s shoulders and shaking him hard this time, terrified at how he’s acting, how he’s turning in on himself. 

Peter’s eye snaps open. His gaze is wild, unfocused.

“Is he awake?” May asks, grasping at Peter’s shoulder from behind him. “Is he?”

“Yes—” Tony starts.

But then Peter scrambles out of bed, like something is hot on his heels. He spins around in the middle of the room, looking down at his feet on the carpet, and Tony quickly pushes himself out of the bed too, tugging May to her feet. Tony doesn’t think the kid knows where he is, and if he does, he doesn’t believe it. He’s still clawing at his throat, heaving broken breaths.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Tony says, holding his hands up like he did last night on the roof, instant surrender, nonthreatening, not grabbing or pushing. “It’s okay. It’s okay.”

“Last night wasn’t a dream, honey, you made it back,” May says, doing the same as Tony and standing alongside him. “You’re here, you really are, you made it. We’re with you.”

“We’re with you,” Tony repeats. 

Peter touches the bandage on his eye again, traces the outer edges of it, and then he walks over to the desk, touching the small scratch near the right hand corner. He touches the lamp too, and then he opens the top drawer, rustling papers around. His Thor action figure goes off, asserting dominance over mighty Mjolnir, and Peter stumbles back a little bit, startled, like he forgot it was in there.

“Iron Man figurine is in the second drawer,” Tony says, jutting his chin out. “Don’t know if that says anything about your preferences, but—”

Peter turns around, looking at him quizzically, and Tony stops talking. Jesus, the kid’s expressions scare him now. Like Beck boiled him down to something Tony’s never seen before.

Peter touches the walls, walks over to where the bathroom is and peeks inside the closet there, briefly touching the door knob before moving back into the main space. 

“You’re okay Pete,” Tony says, taking one tentative step closer.

Peter takes a step back, and then he moves again, opening the main door. He peeks his head outside, like he expects someone to be waiting there for him, looming to snatch him up again. 

Tony’s phone buzzes in his pocket. He’d completely forgotten to plug it in last night, and he takes it out and sees the battery clinging to life. 

A message from Rhodey.

_I’m back, I’m here, how’s our boy?_

Tony looks up at Peter. His grip on the knob is warping it out of shape, and he doesn’t seem to realize he’s doing it. He’s trembling again, and he looks uneasy on his feet. It’s like there’s an air of anxiety all around him, like an aura trying to regain its strength.

Tony types a reply without looking, trusting his thumb not to betray him too much.

_tHANKGod. Unsure. Needta see ya, tell u when._

“Peter,” May says, and Tony can feel her vibrating with the need to fix this unfixable situation. May Parker is a woman of action, of strength and character, grit and determination, and seeing Peter like this is probably chipping away at her resolve. 

Peter turns back around, closing the door. He leans against the wall, shoulders sagging, and he closes his eye, dipping his head back. A tear races down his cheek, and he lets out a wavering breath, a wave of chills rushing visibly down his arms.

“Here,” Tony says. He walks over to the dresser and opens the top drawer, tugging out one of the kid’s hoodies. They’ve already got him in long sleeves, but he’s clearly Colder Than That. Tony walks over with it, and holds it out for Peter to take. Peter stares at it for a second, then he shivers again and seems to decide that Tony is thinking along the right lines. 

He pulls it on, groaning when he strains his arm a certain way, and Tony wonders how many muscles are bothering him right now. He stands there for a second, wipes another tear away before it can fall, and then he walks past the both of them, climbing back up into bed and huddling up facing the wall, with his back to them. 

Tony sighs, digging his fingers into his eyes. He hates the new way he has to measure Peter’s progress now. Not violent, good. Not hysterically sobbing, good. Crying, middle of the line. 

May looks like she’s about ready to burst, and she moves closer to Tony, leaning in and resting her forehead on his chest. It’s such a Peter move that Tony is frozen for a second, and he just stands there like an imbecile before she straightens back out, pinching the bridge of her nose. Her thoughts are clouding her eyes. “I don’t wanna forget a meal again, I’m gonna, uh, go grab Pepper and see if we can make something for breakfast. Do you—is there anything you want, in particular? I’m pretty set on his breakfast favorites but you and I are more of a dinner pair.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Tony says, swallowing hard. 

She stands there, watching Peter’s back. She reaches up, chewing on her thumb nail, and says rooted to the spot. 

“You don’t have to,” Tony says. “You can stay—I can—I can get someone to take care of it. We’ve got people, you know, it’s—” He looks at his watch. It’s one in the goddamn afternoon, but he’s not gonna say that and cancel out the possibility of breakfast. Peter loves breakfast.

May’s eyes are starting to fill with tears, and having _both_ Parkers crying is always a key to Tony’s downfall. He cracks his jaw helplessly. 

“You know he likes his eggs in such a particular way,” she says, still staring over at Peter, scrubbing at her eyes. “And if they’re not right, it just...it just won’t feel like home, and I just—it—it needs to feel like _home_, you know? But I don’t—what if he—”

“Hey, I’ve got him,” Tony whispers. He takes her by the shoulders, meeting her eyes and trying to be the stronger person, even though that’s always her, every damn time. “Okay? Go, come back, I promise I’ve got him. You know I can’t cook for shit, it’ll only make things worse if I try. I can do sandwiches. Sandwiches I can do.”

May nods at him. “Okay,” she says. “Okay, I’m gonna. I’ll be right back. Right back.” She looks at Peter again, seems to be debating whether or not to say goodbye to him. She stares and she stares and she stares, and he wonders if she’s thinking of the last time she saw him, the last look she got then, before he was taken away from her.

If Beck tried now, if he suddenly teleported into this very space, Tony would choke the life out of him. He wouldn’t even hesitate. May will never get another last look. Not until the end of her life, and Tony even hopes to stave that off as long as he possibly can. If there are aliens, there’s gotta be some kind of way to achieve immortality. Yeah, he’s thinking about it. If anyone deserves it, Peter and May are absolutely on that list.

“I think he’s sleeping again,” Tony says, half a lie.

May nods again, and Tony can almost hear her heartbeat. “Fast,” she says, half a thought if that, and she quickly moves for the door, not bothering to put her shoes back on. 

Tony stands there for a long moment after she leaves, as if he expects her to come right back, damn the whole thing, never leaving my baby again, and when she doesn’t he’s more than a hundred percent sure May Parker is a billion times stronger than him. 

He walks over, sits on the edge of the bed, and wonders if Peter is actually sleeping, or just staring at the wall. Tony could be a freak and perch over him like an overactive bird, trying to see, but he stops himself from doing that. Thankfully, his phone starts buzzing, and he quickly pulls it back out. 

Happy.

Tony answers, glancing over his shoulder at Peter, watching his shoulder rise and fall with his breathing. “Hey,” Tony says, a little quietly. 

“Meeting May in the kitchen, Pep too, you still in there with Pete?”

“Yeah,” Tony says. “Help May get things done fast, yeah? I know it nearly killed her to walk out of here but she wants to do his eggs right. Normalcy, much as we can. We better be in stock with all our cheeses.”

“We are,” Happy says. “Uh, I was able to track Peter on CCTV for three blocks before I lost him, he came from the west and literally not one single person took notice of him on the way over here, the way New Yorkers can fucking tune everyone out is unparalleled. Kid with his eye gouged out and no one, no one spared him a second glance. Disgusting.”

Tony’s cheeks heat up with anger, and he looks over his shoulder again. “Great,” he says. “Just. Fantastic.”

“We’re loading up bodega cameras, after that I’m gonna do some invasive privacy things with cell phones, that’s good with you, right?”

“When it comes to this, yes,” Tony says. “Rhodey with you?”

“Yeah, he’s here,” Happy says. “Do you think we’ll be able to see him today? Or you?”

“Don’t know about him,” Tony says, with a sigh, bracing one hand on his knee. “Probably me. If May can do it, I gotta—try and find that strength too. But I’m not leaving the tower.” He looks over his shoulder _again_, trying to track whether Peter is listening to any of this. “Probably for—ever.”

“Noted,” Happy says. “Uh. Alright. In the kitchen now, we’ll get this done.”

“Okay,” Tony says, hearing Pepper and Rhodey talking in the background. “Make it real nice. Do it up in style.” _He deserves it, he deserves it. _

“Absolutely,” Happy says. 

They hang up after that. Tony remembers the early days when Peter was like a monkey on Happy’s back—constant complaints, annoyance, why the hell did you charge me with watching this spider kid, every single day. But now the fondness permeates his voice. Peter can win just about everybody over. Even Happy, perpetual grump extraordinaire. 

Tony looks over his shoulder again. Peter is still the same, and even though Tony can see him breathing, he has the absurd need to reach over and take his pulse. He has to clap one hand down on the other to stop himself. 

He starts talking instead.

“Uh, I got you that new _Force Awakens_ poster,” Tony says, before he can stop himself, as per usual. “Uh, the one you were—coveting, not so secretly, when we were at the street fair on Whitehall.” Tony glances up at it, hanging above the desk. He remembers hanging it, crying his fucking eyes out, with Pepper trying to tell him to do it another day, get someone else to do it, anything, _anything_. But Tony begged—_no, I have to get this done, he’ll be back, he’ll be back, it could be tonight, tomorrow—_that was two weeks ago.

He clears his throat. “Uh. Got that new carpet, too, as you—as you saw, it’s the same one you threw yourself down on in Lowe’s and just—carpet angels. Yeah, I’ve still got that picture.” It was the background on his phone, until he changed it to the one of Peter and Morgan in the lab, sharing that pair of goggles. “And uh, I bought you all the shirts with that weird heart logo thing on it. I didn’t know exactly which design you wanted, so I—”

“Tony.”

The world careens to a screeching halt. 

Tony’s head nearly falls off his neck when he whips around to look at Peter. He’s still lying, facing the wall, and for a stilted moment, Tony’s sure he’s imagining things. But then, like lights on Christmas morning, Peter turns. He braces his elbow on the bed. He looks at him. 

He must have said it. He said it, he said it, he spoke, he spoke _out loud, he said Tony he said it he said it—_

“Yeah?” Tony asks, manic. He scoots closer, trying not to sound like an insane person. “Yeah? Yes? Pete? Peter?”

Peter’s eye is teary again, red-rimmed. Tony reaches out and wraps tentative fingers around the kid’s arm, just above his wrist. Smooths his thumb back and forth. _You’re safe. You’re safe._

Peter clears his throat. “MJ. Ned. My...my class, my...my friends. They’re—are they—are they—”

“They’re fine,” Tony says, too fast, way too fast. “They’re safe, buddy. They’re safe. Just...missing you.” He laughs a little bit, can’t help it. “God, it’s—_amazing_ to hear your voice.”

~

Peter’s voice came forth like rushing waters, like all of a sudden there was nothing holding it back anymore, no more dam, no more _no_, and all the time he was trapped he wondered if Beck was telling the truth. If he had actually killed them. Last thing Peter knew, Happy was keeping them safe, but that was—that was the last thing he knew. Everything after that was Beck, and Beck did nothing but lie. 

But it still startles him when he hears his own voice, almost as much as it seems to startle Tony. And Tony says they’re fine. They’re safe. They’re _missing him._

Worrying about them has been a form of pure fear inside him for however long now. How the hell long has it been? He doesn’t know. He lost track. Beck exaggerated and lied and blew things out of proportion and constantly bent and slowed time with his illusions to keep Peter in the darkness he’d made for him. Beck fucked him up.

Peter’s face crumples, with relief, with sadness, with the shock of speaking again when before he’d felt like he might not be able, and Tony grips his arm a little tighter.

“C’mere, Pete,” Tony says. “C’mere, bud, I got you. It’s alright.”

Peter scoots over to the edge of the bed and Tony immediately pulls him into a hug, rubbing his shoulder up and down. The darkness still eats at Peter’s world, tries to create a gaping maw for him to fall into, and it has its own voices, its own thoughts, its own anger. It’s a firebrand of Beck’s hand print. His laughter. His cruelty. Peter doesn’t like closing his right eye anymore because the darkness bursts, like it gains power by being doubled. 

“I’m sorry,” Peter breathes, testing out his voice again to make sure the previous moments weren’t a fluke. “I’m sorry,” he says again, because it’s the only thing that makes sense. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

“No, no, no, stop,” Tony hushes, softly, with no heat or anger, as Peter had often heard those words from Beck himself. “No apologies. Not from you. Not ever. You don’t have anything to be sorry for. Nothing. Not one thing.”

“Scared you,” Peter huffs out, pressing his face into Tony’s shoulder. He needs May back here too. He feels displaced, without her, without them both. There’s a different kind of trust, here, with the two of them. Safety. MJ and Ned, he has to protect them, it’s not the other way around. And he has to protect Tony and May, too, but they’re the only ones that feel like they can keep him safe. Keep him here. Make sure Beck doesn’t get him again.

Not again. Not again. No, no. 

His breath comes fast and chills run down his spine. He’s cold, he’s so cold, and Tony holds him tighter.

_AWWW, TOO COLD, BABY SPIDER? GOOD._

“Not your fault,” Tony says. He always seems like he’s tentative with the iron arm and hand, but it just serves to remind Peter that it’s really him. Beck hardly ever got that detail. He hardly ever remembered. “Not at all, kid, not at all. Promise. Okay? I’m gonna be making a lot of promises to you and I know I’m a flake sometimes but not anymore, not now, not now that we’ve got you back. Every single promise kept, starting with getting your pals here. Soon as you’re ready for them to be here, they’ll be here. I’ll learn the art of teleportation. I’ll get it down pat.”

Peter’s gut stirs with something like panic. Ned’s laughter. The cut of MJ’s voice. They’re both like extensions of himself but he isn’t himself anymore. That Peter is torn, haggard, sick. There’s no way to put him back together again. Permanent damage. Lost pieces. 

“I’m...I don’t know when,” Peter says. His heart longs for now. Longs for yesterday. But everything else says no. Broken. False.

_NO ONE FUCKING LOVES YOU, PETER. HOW COULD THEY? HOW COULD THEY NOW?_

“I’m dangerous,” Peter says, slowly, and admitting it hurts. It hurts. But he doesn’t trust himself. His fear has a life of its own, and it can control him. His panic, his memories, the traces Beck left behind. He’s constantly drowning. Constantly gasping for air. “I, they—they don’t—they shouldn’t be around me. I’m dangerous.”

Tony shakes his head. “No you’re not. You’re not dangerous. You’re still you, Peter. Yeah, you’ve been through something you never, ever should have had to go through. It—Pete, it—it kills me. It—it breaks my fucking heart.” He clears his throat, holds Peter like he’s afraid he’s gonna slip through his fingers. He encloses him with both arms, and Peter feels safe enough to close his eye, drawing in a big breath and letting it out slowly. “But you’re you,” Tony says. “You’re always gonna be you. One of the most wonderful, kind, genuine people on the whole planet. One of my all time favorites. You’re not dangerous. You’re not. You’re a hero.”

Too many tears. Peter’s eyes burn. Eye. Eye. Eye. Just the one. 

“I’ll tell you when,” Peter says, in a croak, and he doesn’t want to let go of him, but he reluctantly pulls back. He’s sure Tony is gonna get sick of all these hugs real quick.

Tony rubs his shoulder, keeping hold of him, and Peter tries to keep his breathing level. _It’s not fake. It’s him. They’re here. Real. Real. May’s about to come back with eggs. It’s the tower. The tower. No more warehouse. No more Beck. No more._

“I know it...I know it’s not been, uh, much time since you got back,” Tony says, softly. “And you’ve got all the time in the world. Another one of my promises. But that nightmare, and—everything. I know it’s a lot. I know it’s—a lot. And I don’t want you to have to keep it to yourself if you wanna talk about it. Now that we’ve found your voice again. You know you can talk to me and May.”

Peter is frozen.

Talk about it. 

There was a time not so long ago that he knew, for near fact, that he’d never get to talk about it. Because Quentin Beck was going to kill him. Quentin Beck would be the last person Peter would see on this earth, despite the love Peter held in his heart for a special few others. 

But now. He’s not dead. He’s not there. He’s here.

Talk about it? Talk about it. Talk about it?

It. What happened. It grabs him, spears a cosmic arm through his chest, and he can see. Like he’s there, all over again. 

Arms stretched out to either side of him, strapped down, and as much as he’d struggle he couldn’t get out, and he’d been kidnapped before and the handcuffs were no problem, they were no problem, why were they a problem now? He rubbed his wrists raw trying to get out. But he couldn’t. He couldn’t. 

Beck breaking his legs methodically, the white hot pain that steam-rolled him, the scream Beck muffled with the slap of his palm when Peter got too loud.

_THEY CAN’T FUCKING HEAR YOU, BUT SOMETIMES I DON’T WANT TO EITHER._

Screaming, drunken rants, the loud and the fire, the cigarette burns, the blow torch, the fights, weighed down and at a disadvantage, no sleep because he wouldn’t fucking let him, only on his time, only when he’d say. Choking, gasping, the knife, the knife, no, no, what is he doing—

Peter realizes he’s humming to himself, and Tony is tugging him close again.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” Tony says, gripping Peter’s shoulder. “You’re okay, you’re okay, I’m sorry, Pete. Not yet, not yet, I get it.”

Peter covers his face with the span of his hand. 

_I THOUGHT YOU’D BE FUCKING STRONGER THAN THIS, SPIDER-MAN._

“I’m sorry,” Peter whispers. 

“No, no,” Tony says, softly. “I am, I’m sorry. Don’t worry, it’s alright. Like I said, we’ve got all the time in the world. You’re safe, you’re alright. We’re gonna get through this together. Step by step. Whatever it takes.”

Peter shivers, makes himself stop humming. He doesn’t know why he started that. 

“God, you’re so cold,” Tony says, rubbing his arm. “Friday, gimme some more heat, huh? Kid’s cold, keep up.”

Peter feels the onslaught of warmth, and he feels bad, because he knows Tony definitely doesn’t need it. He clears his throat, and tries to find some new strength. _It’s Tony. It’s Tony._ “Uh. Cold, I’m—I’m cold because he—he kept it cold. All the time, on—on purpose. It’s like he was trying to...condition me, I guess.” With that and other things. “He wore jackets, I, uh—the hoodie I had, that—that was his. But he wore jackets and—he pointed fans at me. It was always cold.”

Tony stares at him, eyes searching his face. Peter can see the thoughts in his gaze, the rage, can almost hear him cursing before he says anything at all. “Okay,” he says, setting his jaw. “We’ll...we’ll work on that, bud. But for now we’ll keep your room a nice sauna.” Tony nods at him, and he blows out a sigh. “I missed you so much, Peter. I’m—Christ, I’m so glad you’re home.”

Peter’s heart clenches, and with that the door opens, and May carries another kind of brightness back into the room. She sees them sitting there, and her eyes widen. She’s got a similar tray to what Happy brought in last night, and Peter sees the same breakfast order he’s been claiming for himself since...as long as he can remember. Scrambled eggs with cheddar and Muenster cheese, with little bits of bacon mixed in. She’s the only one that really knows how to do it right.

“Hey lady,” Tony says, patting Peter on the back. “Uh—”

“What’s wrong?” she asks, standing there like she’s been frozen in place. Her eyes find Peter. “What’s wrong, honey bun?”

“Put the tray down, May,” Tony says, laughing a little bit, and Peter can tell what he’s getting at. He waits to speak until she tentatively puts the tray down on the dresser, her eyes narrowed.

“What’s going on, we okay?” she asks, approaching them. She sits down on Peter’s other side, quickly looking at Tony for details. “I wasn’t gone too long, was I? I tried to go quick as I could—the Muenster was hidden in the back of the fridge—I don’t know if Happy helps in the kitchen or hinders—”

“No, it wasn’t too long” Peter says, quietly, watching her face change. “And you’re—you’re back now.”

She looks at him like she’s just now seeing him, for the very first time. Her eyes go soft and she tilts her head, reaching up and cupping his cheek. The touch is reassuring—there’s still something nagging at the back of his mind that’s trying to drag his voice away from him. Is it fear? Is it Beck?

_STOP, STOP, STOP, THIS IS A MONOLOGUE, NOT A FUCKING DIALOGUE, JUST BECAUSE YOU’RE NOT GAGGED RIGHT NOW DOESN’T MEAN I WANNA FUCKING HEAR YOU, I’M JUST TIRED OF THE ABSOLUTELY PATHETIC WHIMPERING—_

“Well that’s the nicest thing I’ve ever heard,” May says. She leans in, pressing a kiss to his cheek, and she laughs a little bit, holding him close. “Oh, honey. Oh, my sweetheart. Your _voice._”

He knows they must have thought he could lose his voice too, an eye and the ability to talk, and what else would Peter Parker come back without? What else is he missing? Peter knows, and he doesn’t know. It’s all behind closed doors. 

He wants to say _I’m sorry_, but he can see Tony watching him over May’s shoulder. So, instead. “I love you,” Peter says. “Thank you.”

Tony smiles.

“I love you too,” May says. She holds his head again, and presses about a million kisses all over his face until she draws a laugh out of him. She leans back, smiling. 

“Eggs!” Tony says, ruffling Peter’s hair.

Peter watches him get up. He can see Tony and May, he can see them, but half the time the warehouse is tattooed on top of the room he’s in—he can see Beck striding around, throwing glass bottles against the wall, doing whatever the fuck he was doing on his computer. Peter can hear the fans, the radiator, the dripping. He can see where the table of tools was. He can feel the rubber glove turning his face roughly. Beck would laugh so much, so often. He liked to line his lies with laughter. 

Peter doesn’t like it, but he can feel Beck’s hands on him when they touch him. He’s not in their eyes, not in their movements, but when May touches his shoulder, Peter can feel Beck grabbing him, tugging him up, pushing him back. Shoving a syringe in his arm. When Tony runs his hand through Peter’s hair, Peter can feel Beck doing the same thing, how Peter would try to flinch away. His tenderness was a lie, and always short-lived. 

_They’re not him, they’re not him. He’s not here. They’re not him. Safe, safe, safe. Home._

Tony carries the tray over to the bed, and then there’s a knock at the door. He glances over his shoulder, and, without fail, Peter’s heart flips. He knows there are only good people here—people on his side, people who care about him, people who Tony vetted and kept close for a reason. So why doesn’t he know that? Why doesn’t he trust that? Why does he feel like jumping out the goddamn window any time someone other than Tony or May so much as breathes within fifty feet of him?

Peter grabs the fork (remembers the time he stabbed Beck with his fork, and the pain that followed after) and quickly takes a bite of his eggs. He doesn’t watch Tony answer the door.

He can hear Pepper’s voice.

“I found the bag in the other fridge, I’m pretty sure he put it in there before he left,” she says. “It’s candy, I mean—it’s still good, and it’s his, once they thaw out he can eat ‘em all.”

Tony laughs. “All of them?”

“He deserves twenty Twix bars, honey.”

“That is true,” Tony says, and Peter sees him move to take the bag from her. It feels like a lifetime ago, but they are his, he did put them there. He knows exactly what she’s talking about. He always likes his Twix bars cold. He feels a wash of nostalgia for what his life used to be, and he’s talking before he can stop himself.

“Pepper,” he calls out, letting the fork clatter back down to the tray.

Both Tony and May look over at him, startled, but neither one of them say anything. Tony steps aside, slightly, like he’s ready to trust Peter’s decision, but ready to help him if he changes his mind, too.

Pepper pokes her head in through the crack in the door, and she smiles softly at him. She’s still holding the bag of Twix. “Hey, sweetheart,” she says. “It’s...God, it’s good to see you.”

_WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU LOOKING AT? WHY ARE YOU ALWAYS FUCKING STARING AT ME?_

He’s distinctly aware of Beck standing there too. Looking at him like he’d used to, full of disgust, and he morphs in and out of her. Peter can hear the ghost of his laughter. 

“I’m sorry I’m—so weird,” Peter says, trying to encompass the whole situation but somehow boiling it down to something strange and false. “Uh, like, I don’t know.”

“You’re not weird,” Pepper says, stepping a little closer through the door, and Beck disappears, fades, flares up again. “Not at all. You’re stronger than any of us.”

Peter shifts his mouth to the side. He feels the need to explain, but the world is opening up again. There’s that fucking hole in the wall, blaring angrily at him. He can see his own blood splattering in there. “I just, uh, I—I wanna see everybody, I really do, especially you and Morgan and Happy and my friends, and—everyone else, but, uh—”

Beck is staring at him. Standing there. Judging, like he always would. Every second of every day.

“It’s alright, Peter,” Pepper says, shaking her head. 

“Yeah, honey, don’t—don’t overwork yourself,” May says, hand on his shoulder. 

Explain. Explain.

_WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?_

The Beck in front of him isn’t yelling. He’s just staring. Waiting. _Overcome your goddamn fear, Spider-Man. Come on. Come on. _

“No, I wanna, uh, I just, uh. Sometimes I see him,” Peter says, in a flash. He glances over at where Beck is, right now, and he fazes again. “It’s like he—he sticks to people. Tries to be them. It doesn’t really happen with Tony and May, but it, uh—sadly—seems to—happen with everyone else I see.” He swallows hard, reaching up and touching the bandage over his eye socket. He glances at Tony. “I’m sorry.”

“No, baby, don’t apologize,” Pepper says. “I get it. I really do. You don’t have to see anybody you don’t want to, everyone’s gonna wait on you until you’re ready. But I appreciate you letting me in despite what you’re going through.”

“I missed you,” Peter says, clearing his throat. “I missed everybody. I don’t not want—to see everybody, it’s just—it’s just hard.” He glances over at the hole in the wall, and it’s just getting bigger and bigger and bigger. It eclipses the poster Tony got him. “I just—see so much stuff I don’t wanna see now.” Lose an eye, see more. But nothing good. Hell on earth, and it surges through his veins.

“It’s alright, Peter,” Pepper says, so softly, her softness cutting through Beck’s angry lines. And for a moment, he’s gone. “It’s alright. We’ll all be here when you’re ready. We’re gonna help however we can. And in the meantime…” She hands Tony the bag of Twix, and nods towards it. “You deserve that. And way way more. I’m gonna work on the way way more. I remember your preferences.”

He hasn’t had chocolate since...since Before. And he smiles, trying not to cry. 

“Thank you,” he says, smiling at her.

Tony steps up and kisses her on the cheek, and Peter can hear him thanking her too.

~

Pepper leaves, and Peter focuses on his breakfast, wishing he could eat the Twix too. He would be, if they weren’t chocolate bricks, but May’s eggs are as perfect as he remembers. It does feel like home, and for a few moments, he’s able to live with the idea that he’s safe. That nothing fogging his head is real. 

But, despite that, gnarled hands tug him down throughout the day. He remembers. Remembers when Beck would shove food into his mouth, forcing him to eat whatever fast food crap he brought back to the warehouse. And when he was gone, Peter’s only opportunities to truly free himself, that’s when he drugged him up the most, when he upped the ante on the illusions and made them so thick, layered, and deep that Peter never would have been able to find his way out on his best day. Beck only had a few drones at his new base, no EDITH glasses, and yet he was still...better than him, in every way. He still had him. He still chipped off piece after piece after piece of Peter’s soul with every passing day. 

_YOU TRYING TO DIE, PARKER? HAVE YOU CHOSEN YOUR TIME?_

Peter keeps covering the bandage over his stolen eye and wonders what they’ll do about it. They can’t keep it like this forever. They’ll have to do something. Will he have to wear an eyepatch, like Fury? At least Fury still has a goddamn eye under there. Peter is disgusting. He doesn’t have anything. Beck made sure of that.

He retreats into the safe space he made for himself. He watches the day pass through the window. He couldn’t see the sky through the window where Beck kept him. Only the outlines of people who couldn’t see him. Someone scarred, someone lost. Someone kept. Right under their noses.

He knows May and Tony are watching him, now. They try to stay in his room together as much as they are able, and that makes Peter feel like a burden, a problem. May has work. Tony has his own family. Peter isn’t his, Beck made that clear, Beck said it, all the damn time, until it took root in Peter’s head and overrode what he believed to be true. 

_HE DOESN’T ACTUALLY GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOU. HE DOESN’T. WHY WOULD HE? AND HE SURE AS SHIT WON’T NOW._

No, no. No, Tony’s better than that. Peter knows he is. He knows he is. Tony loves him, he’s told him. He’s told him. 

“Peter,” May’s voice says, a hand on his shoulder.

He tunes back in. The TV is on now, _Bob’s Burgers._ His empty breakfast tray is gone. So is Tony, and that makes Peter’s heart rattle in his chest with the implications of his previous thoughts. The Beck in his head falls into hysterics. 

“Do you—do you do that when you’re feeling nervous?” May asks, when he looks at her. “Where you’re sort of...here, but you’re not?”

He feels afraid to talk to her about it. Her, in particular. She shouldn’t have to know about this aspect of his life, who he is now, what being Spider-Man brought him to. She shouldn’t have to know. She’s tried so hard, since he was dumped on her. He doesn’t want her to think about everything that’s happened to him.

“Uh, yeah,” he says, fast. “I did, uh, when I was afraid, when I was—passing the time.” He clears his throat, hums a little bit before he stops himself. The darkness clinging to one half of his world tries to eat the light. “Sorry,” he says.

“It’s alright,” May says, trying to sound convincing. She touches him with such reverence, and he sighs under the attention. “But I want you to know, honestly, you don’t have to be afraid here. This is the safest place you could be. Tony’s got the highest security, he’s never gonna let anything happen to you again.”

No, no, no. No, no. And that means he’s not himself. He’s not strong, he can’t protect himself, he can’t protect them, he can’t protect anybody. No more Spider-Man. He’s dead. He’s dead.

“Where is he?” Peter asks. He’s waiting for them to vanish. Get sick of him, and his worthlessness.

_Don’t think that. Don’t think that._

“He, uh, we discussed it, and, uh—”

The door opens and Tony walks back in, something in his hand. He glances between the two of them, and a small smile forms on his face. “Oh, hey,” he says. “He, uh—”

Peter can hear the phrase _wake up?_ teetering on the edge of his sentence, but he doesn’t say it, because Peter wasn’t actually asleep. He was drifting. Hiding.

He’s gotta try to stop himself from doing that.

“I was starting to tell him about what you were going to get,” May says.

“Oh, good,” Tony says, walking over and sitting on Peter’s free side. He sits down, and Peter can see the phone. His phone. “Uh, Ned had it,” Tony says. “You had to deal with a lot of bullshit and I don’t know how it didn’t get lost, but your pal had it and he gave it to us pretty early on, when we...when we couldn’t find you. He thought it’d be better with us, and now that you’re back, it’s...it’s yours. I did some upgrades on it, gave you a new screen, made it more secure.” He taps his finger on the side of the phone, and doesn’t hand it over just yet. Peter can see a new case on it too. 

Tony meets his gaze. “It’s hard to say this, Pete, uh...there are messages on there. Obviously, we knew you didn’t have it, Ned knew, the two of us knew, your—uh, Michelle knew. But sometimes people have weak moments, they—well—”

“I did it,” May says, with a degree of shame in her voice. “We all did, it was—hard to stop the inclination.”

“You messaged the phone,” Peter says, mouth dry. “Because you couldn’t...talk to me.”

Tony nods, and he cracks his jaw.

“I wouldn’t listen to them right now,” May says, rubbing Peter’s shoulder. “Or, honestly—I don’t know if I would at all, baby. All that’s over, we’ve got you back now.”

Tony gently puts the phone in Peter’s hand. And despite what May said, Peter can almost hear their voices already, things they might have said after days without him, weeks, a month—because it was a month. He looks at the date, on the phone. It was exactly a month. 

Their feelings would deteriorate. Their pain would rise. Hope would fall to the wayside. They’d be talking to him like he was dead.

“If you want me to tell them what’s going on, I will,” Tony says. He’s on Peter’s good side this time, and Peter turns all the way so he can see May’s face, too. “Or you could message them, call them, whatever you wanna do. It’s up to you.”

Peter doesn’t know what’s right, but the shimmer around the edges of the room chills out a little bit. He hasn’t been able to make his own decisions for the longest time—Beck did all that. Took that from him, in almost every way he could have. 

He clears his throat. “Uh, I’m—I wanna call them,” he says, looking up at Tony, almost saying it like a question. 

Tony nods quickly. “Alright,” he says. “You want some privacy?”

That scares him. His inclination is to beg for them to stay, because a room alone feels like, feels like—_I’LL BE BACK IN AN HOUR, I’M PUTTING MYSELF ON A TIMELINE, MAYBE WE’LL HAVE SUSHI AGAIN. YOU HAVE FUN OVER THERE, THIS ONE’S REAL BAD, HOPEFULLY IT DOESN’T FUCK YOU UP TOO MUCH. EITHER WAY, SAME PLANS FOR TONIGHT._

He doesn’t know. He doesn’t know. He reaches up with his free hand and rubs at his good eye, and tries to draw in measured breaths. 

“Hey, what about the back balcony a little down the hall?” Tony asks. “Fresh air, glass door, we can stand right there beside you but you’ll still have privacy. And you can see the city.”

Peter finds himself nodding. Fresh air. Fresh air. That, above anything—there was only the once, in this past month. The one time, before the escape. He doesn’t like to think about it, and what happened afterwards, all that screaming, the way they fought, how close he was to getting the upper hand. And then. And then, what he did, the goddamn video he took, while Peter suffered. Peter remembers. Another failure. Two failures in a row. And what Beck said, to start it all. What he said. Peter doesn’t even like thinking about it in front of Tony.

“Good idea,” Peter says. “Yeah, yeah. Balcony.”

~

They walk him there, as if they’re the secret service escorting the president. No one else is around, which Peter is sure Tony orchestrated. He steps out onto the balcony, and sucks in a breath once he’s got the sliding door closed. 

New York. He sort of feels like everyone is looking at him, and he doesn’t see—he doesn’t see—no, he doesn’t look. He turns his back, leans against the railing. His hand trembles when he unlocks his phone—seventy texts, and thirteen voicemails. He doesn’t look at them, doesn’t even try, doesn’t believe his heart is ready for it. 

But it’d be worse if they weren’t there. 

_THEY DON’T MISS YOU. OH YEAH, YOUR FRIENDS ARE DEAD, I KEEP FORGETTING THAT. HA HA HA. MAYBE YOUR AUNT AND TONY ARE NEXT? WOULDN’T THAT BE NICE. BUT THEY DON’T MISS YOU. AND IF YOUR FRIENDS WERE ALIVE, THEY WOULDN’T MISS YOU EITHER._

Peter opens his contacts, and can’t pick between them for a second. Then he thinks about what he looks like, and all the things Beck said about MJ, and he quickly chooses Ned.

The phone only rings once before Ned answers. 

“Mr. Stark,” Ned’s voice says. “I promise you, I’ve got your number saved, you don’t have to call from this phone—”

“Ned,” Peter says, his voice breaking. 

There’s a silence. 

“Ned, it’s me,” Peter says, and he’s a little surprised by the sound of his own voice.

“Oh my God,” Ned says. The wind is blowing loudly this high up, whipping around, but Peter can still hear the break in his best friend’s words. “Oh my God. _Peter?_”

“I’m home,” Peter whispers, trying not to cry. He feels a little displaced and he looks at Tony and May, standing stalwart inside. “I’m home, I’m home, I—” He doesn’t wanna say _I’m okay._ He’s not. He’s not okay. His chest clenches, and he glances down at his feet. “I miss you. I _missed_ you.”

“I miss you—God, are you alright? Are you alright? Where are you? What happened? God, Peter, you just disappeared, and Tony would tell us some stuff but not a whole lot because he said he wanted to keep us safe too but God nothing was happening and it was just—it was _forever_ and we were so scared, every day we were wondering and hoping and just checking the news—I’m talking too much. I’m talking too much. When can I see you?”

It’s too much, it’s—it’s _a lot_. He’s out of his mind happy to hear Ned talking again, not the Ned he’d created in his head, in his dreams, to pretend Beck was lying, to pretend his life was normal. But the idea of him seeing Peter like this—the idea of _her_ seeing him like this—he feels dizzy. He feels like he’s gonna throw up.

“I—I don’t know,” Peter says, eye filling with tears. “Uh—I’m not—I’m not good, Ned. It’s bad.” He doesn’t know if he can say it. He makes the mistake of turning back around, looking out at the city, and he can see, he can—he can see it—

Some of the buildings fall. Some of them explode. A wave grows out of the bay, larger than Manhattan itself. It grows and looms over the city, ready to eat it alive. Drown him and all the rest of them.

It’s not happening. It’s not really happening. Peter turns away so he doesn’t have to look.

“God, Peter, I’m so sorry,” Ned says. “I’m so sorry.”

He hasn’t even heard about any of it, and he’s sorry. 

Peter clears his throat. There’s something rising inside his chest, something clogging his throat again. He feels like he’s regressing, close to that fight or flight mode again. Chills run through him despite the sun beating down, and he feels dizzy. He’s still gotta call MJ. 

“Ned, I gotta—I’m gonna text you, okay?” Peter says, hating himself. He wants to talk to him, he wants to, he needs to, but he’s hanging up. “I’ll—as soon as you can come, Happy will go get you both and bring you guys, okay? Okay?”

“Okay—Peter, I love you, man, okay? So much. So much, I’m so glad you’re—I’m glad you’re safe.”

_Safe. Safe. You’re safe. He said so._

“I love you too,” Peter says, voice trembling. He quickly hangs up, and almost wants to toss the phone off the balcony so he doesn’t have to deal with any of this. He doesn’t know why he wanted to handle this himself. He should have let Tony do it. And now he’s gotta call MJ. Now he’s gotta, because he told Ned, and he can’t let her find out from Ned. He’s gotta tell her himself.

_PETER, THERE’S NOTHING DOING WITH THIS GIRL. EVEN IF SHE WASN’T DEAD—WHICH SHE IS, BY THE WAY—YOU’RE DISGUSTING, YOU’RE LIKE A NEWBORN CALF, YOU’RE NOT STRONG, YOU’RE NOT CUTE, YOU CAN’T TAKE CARE OF HER, YOU CAN’T EVEN TAKE CARE OF YOURSELF. SHE WOULD NEVER WANT YOU. STOP THINKING ABOUT IT. YOU’RE FUCKING PATHETIC._

Peter really wants to. Just. Toss his phone. Away.

He swallows hard, and forces himself to call her. The mere act of raising the phone to his ear nearly makes him black out. It rings once and he nearly hangs up, he has to, he has to, he can’t talk to her, she doesn’t wanna talk to him, she never did, she never did, just like Beck said—

“Hello?” she asks. Then, after a moment. “Uh, Tony, I don’t—I don’t want this number to call me unless it’s Peter. If that’s...if that’s okay.”

His lower lip trembles. He can see her face. The wisps of hair curling against her cheeks. It feels like a lifetime and a moment all at once. He came so close to holding her hand, back then, on their walk. He should have. He should have. 

“It...it is Peter,” he says, barely. “It’s...MJ, it’s me.”

She’s quiet too, just like Ned was. 

“Where are you?” she asks then, fast. “Where are you? Are you alright? When can I see you?”

Dizziness, again. Failure. He doesn’t think he can speak, and his tears fall freely. It’s almost as if the eye socket is throbbing, and the measured breaths thing—isn’t working. He doesn’t look out at the city. He can’t. He can’t. No, he’ll see it. He looks at Tony and May again.

“Peter?” MJ asks, and she sounds a little frantic. “Are you still there?”

“I’m here,” he says, tentatively. “Sorry, sorry.”

“No, no, don’t—don’t apologize, I’m sorry, God, I—Peter, are you alright? When did you—where are you?”

“Tower,” Peter croaks. He rubs at his eyes, and Beck is ranting, ranting, ranting in his head. _SHE DOESN’T WANT YOU, YOU DUMB IDIOT KID. WHAT A LITTLE MORON WITH A CRUSH. SHE SAID SHE DOESN’T WANT YOU. SHE DOESN’T WANT YOU._ Peter can’t tune him out. “Uh—MJ.”

“Peter. It’s okay. It’s okay.”

He wonders if she can hear him crying. His cheeks burn with embarrassment. “I, uh, I’m not—I’m not alright, I’m alive, though, so...that’s good, and you’re alive, so that’s...that’s really good—” _Thank God. Thank God._ Part of him still doubted it, part of him still felt like he’d find out that was one thing Beck wasn’t lying about. And then he wouldn’t want to go on anymore. Not for anybody. “I’m sorry, I’m—I’m messed up.”

“It’s okay,” she says. “It’s okay. Just breathe, okay?”

Measured breaths. That’s right. 

The darkness is eating him alive. Stabbing pains in his chest. 

“Listen, right now, I wanna—I wanna see you, it’s really important to me that I see you,” Peter says, voice breaking. “But I—I can’t—as soon as, uh, I can, which I hope is super soon, Happy will—he’ll come get you, okay? I mean. I mean, if you want, you don’t have to if—”

“As soon. As you are ready,” MJ says. “Like. The second it happens. Text me, and get him over here. I’ll be—I’ll be waiting, okay?”

“Okay,” he says, bracing his hand on the railing. There are too many things in his head. Too many things he should say, too many things he shouldn’t. He can hear her breathing. “Uh, MJ—”

“I missed you,” she says. “A lot. And I’m—I’m so excited to see you. No...no matter what.”

Another tear races down his cheek, and he nods, his head swimming. “I missed you too.” _So much. So much._

They don’t say goodbye, and that seems purposeful. But when he hangs up, it’s like half his world separates from the rest. Just like he’s half darkness now. Before, when he was wasting away in that warehouse, he didn’t think he’d make it back. But now he’s back, he’s dealing with it, he didn’t think he’d be back after what was done to him, he didn’t think he’d have to face it all—the differences, how bright and sharp and horrible they are, a life he had before but now he’s different, he’s so different, and they’re the same, they’re the same, and he can’t—he _can’t_ be—

He’s in and out again. He’s all red alarms blaring. He’s Beck screaming. 

“Tony, take the phone from him, he’s gonna break it—”

“Hey, bud, bud.”

Peter doesn’t remember opening the sliding glass door. Something like anger is carrying him back down the hallway, something like panic, yeah, it’s more like panic, more like fear, more like _run_. Every step is like falling, and he couldn’t run away before, _he’d tried, he’d tried_, so he does now, he runs back to his room, practically the only fucking place he feels the slightest bit safe. But he doesn’t know if he believes in safe, he doesn’t know anything anymore, he just needs to run, he needs to run—

“Baby,” May’s voice says, behind him. “Honey.”

“Pete,” Tony says. “Whatever it is, we’ll help you. Whatever it is, we’re here.”

Peter stumbles. He can barely walk straight, everything is too close, too far, not at all where it’s supposed to be, because he can’t fucking see the way he’s supposed to, and he never will again, never again, how can they love him like this, how can _she—_

He pushes his bedroom door open, and starts to pace, back and forth, back and forth. He can see Tony and May now and he doesn’t want to flinch away but he does, he does, and he hates himself, he hates this, he hates what he is now, what Beck made him—

“I’m sorry,” he whispers, glancing away. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry—”

“No apologies,” Tony says, and he quickly glances at May. “You’re okay. Did they say something you didn’t want to hear?”

“No,” Peter says, and that hurts, he hurts, and he squeezes his eye shut tight. He tries to move, but dizziness overwhelms him, and he stumbles back. He hits something, he can’t remember, Beck is fucking screaming, his own heart is raging and it hurts, it hurts—

Something breaks, he can hear it, and he takes one step to try and get away (Beck smashes bottles against the wall and the glass goes everywhere) but then there’s pain, he stepped the wrong way, he stepped the wrong way and his foot—there’s glass in his foot—Peter tries to look down but the darkness is where the pain is, and he shifts, Tony taking his arm, May’s hands on his waist, and his foot is covered in blood—

_“Alright, how’s that, huh, little spider baby?” Beck asks. He slides the knife along Peter’s arm, letting it cut down and dive deeper. The blood pours out and Peter doesn’t scream, just squeezes his eyes shut tight, arching his neck back. It wouldn’t matter if he screamed anyway, the tape around his mouth is so tight this time that his cheeks bulge around it. _

_Beck sighs. “Peter. I’m gonna take that off if you’re not gonna give me any kind of reaction, I mean, what the hell do you think I’m doing this for?”_

_Peter refuses to look at him. He won’t. He stares up at the pipes on the ceiling, watches them drip. His right arm throbs with pain where Beck is cutting him, and he twists his left wrist in the cuff, hoping that maybe, maybe now, something will give. _

_But why would it? Why the hell would it?_

_“Christ, you’re stubborn,” Beck says, tapping the knife on the gurney. “Just like Tony. Maybe you are his kid. Did he fuck your mom, huh? Did you know?”_

_Peter breathes hard through his nose. _

_“Hey, what would it be like if I cut the bottom of your foot? Huh? That’s different. We haven’t tried that yet.”_

“Peter,” Tony’s voice says, loud and fearful. “Hey. Come back to us, c’mon. C’mon, kid, I’ve got you. I’ve got you, you’re with me.”

Peter tunes back in. That—that hasn’t happened—it was like the past took him. Yanked him right back, sucked him into the pain of the memory. 

But he’s in his room. He’s on the ground. He’s leaning up against Tony’s chest, Tony’s got his arms around him. He reaches up, gently touching Peter’s cheek. May is down by his foot, wrapping it with something. He can’t see the blood. He can’t see it. 

“You can talk, you can,” Tony says, which makes Peter wonder what the hell noises he was making. Tony rubs a gentle hand over Peter’s chest, and Peter quickly grabs his hand, holding it tight. Iron arm. Iron arm. He’s really here. This is real. 

Tony squeezes his hand. “You’re okay, bud. You’re okay, I’ve got you. I’ve got you. He’s not here. You’re with us. You’re with us.”

“What...what broke?” Peter asks, swallowing hard. He grabs at his own face with his free hand. No tape, no tape. But no eye either. 

“Your trophy,” May says. “It’s alright. Just a little cut, honey. Just a little cut. I know it hurts but we’re taking care of it.”

“I just—I—” His vision goes fuzzy and he sobs, because he was there, he was there, he was back there. It wasn’t them, it was Beck. Hurting him. It felt so real. He had him. He had him back. He _took him._ “God, I—”

“It’s okay,” Tony whispers. He holds him tight, and Peter closes his eye, holding onto Tony’s arm. “Shhh. It’s alright. We’re here.”

Peter feels so small. He doesn’t know what to do, there’s no fucking escaping it. The memories are alive. He can get trapped back there. “Tony,” Peter cries, turning his head towards him, trying not to panic again, trying to be here, _here_ and nowhere else. Here, with them. Not Beck. Not Beck.

Tony kisses his temple, rocking him back and forth. Tony’s affection always grounds him, because Peter still isn’t completely used to it. It reminds him of where he is, really. “You’re not there, you’re here. Alright?” Tony says, gently. “Not there. All that’s over. You’re here, you’re with us. You’re safe.”

Safe. Safe.

Peter hates feeling like this. Hates them seeing him like this. He’s supposed to be fucking stronger than this, but he can’t even talk to his friends on the phone without completely losing it and hurting himself. How the hell is he ever gonna see them again? How, when he’s like this?

Peter sinks back into Tony’s embrace, as he and May take care of him, and he lets himself fade again. 

He doesn’t fucking deserve them, or anything they’re doing. He doesn’t deserve to be here at all.

He’s just not strong enough.

~

Two days pass, and Tony doesn’t think he’s ever been at such a loss.

“They’re that bad?” Rhodey asks him, as Tony puts together Peter’s lunch. Morgan is in the corner, eating her own lunch, which consists of a piece of cold pizza and goldfish.

Tony looks over his shoulder at her, and she gives him the same look she’s been giving him since this all started. He calls it her _Peter_ look, and the damn second Pete says he’s ready to see her, Tony is gonna sweep her in there and make it happen. She’s gonna hold a grudge until that moment.

“Uh, yeah,” Tony says. “Every time, he has a hard time waking up, we have to shake him and shake him and then he’s—not himself.” He blows out a breath. “It’s hard. Hard to see, so I know it’s—hard to experience.” He cuts the tomato slices, and the toaster dings for him to take the bread out. The nightmares have been constant. The kid doesn’t even like to try and sleep anymore, knowing what’s waiting for him. 

“Tones, I’m—I just don’t know what to say about all of it,” Rhodey says, his hand on his hip. He looks down, shaking his head. “I don’t know, I know we talked about this, but I just feel like half of it is on me. I didn’t make it on time, and then I couldn’t find him over there—”

Tony grunts, nudging into him. “The only person at fault is the lunatic that did this,” he says. “And—there’s no way he was holding him over there. No, he—he had to have—brought him back here. Made his base here.” He definitely hasn’t mentioned that out loud yet, but it’s been on his mind.

Rhodey looks at him from under furrowed eyebrows. “You think? I know we’re looking everywhere—”

“I don’t know about New York in particular, we still can’t—we still can’t track his movements, but there’s no damn way Peter got back here from London on his own. He was...closer than that.”

Rhodey’s got his own particular look now, the same feeling that’s been boiling in Tony’s blood since he started cultivating this theory. They’re both wondering just how close Peter was, all this time.

“Yeah,” Tony says. He swallows hard. His phone buzzes in his pocket, for the fourth time today.

“Is that his girl again?” Rhodey asks.

Tony pulls it out, and nods, opening the message. “Yeah,” he says. “Never would have thought Peter would fall for an actual spitfire, but here we are.”

“He’s a lot like you in that regard, too,” Rhodey says. 

_Just reiterating the fact that I’d like to know the moment he’s available. Like, the absolute second. I’m ready at any time. Ned and I both are._

Rhodey heaves a sigh. “Alright, we’re gonna start looking harder,” he says, his jaw set, determination in his eyes. “But is...is there, uh, anything we can do for him? I feel like—like I’m not doing enough. Peter, he—he did so much for everyone in Europe, keeping Beck at bay—he saved so many lives, he’s always saving people, and now he—he needs help. All of us, and I mean all of us, we wanna—we wanna do all we can. Whatever he needs.”

Tony finishes putting the sandwich together, and grabs Peter’s favorite chips, the cool ranch Doritos. “Just—find Beck. So I don’t have to worry about him being out there anymore. So I can tell Peter we got him. And I know he’s gonna wanna see everybody at some point, so—”

“Second he wants to, we’re there,” Rhodey says. 

That sounds familiar. A lot like the many texts he’s receiving.

Tony reaches up, pats Rhodey’s cheek. “Love you, platypus. Just having you on my team helps.”

“I mean, you need some muscle, right?” Rhodey asks, knocking Tony’s good arm with the back of his hand. 

“Yeah, you’ve got it in spades,” Tony says. He winks at him, and then he turns, walking over and kneeling in front of Morgan. “You gonna hang out in the kitchen with Uncle Rhodey for now, muffin top?”

She glares at him, and Tony sighs.

“Baby, I swear to you, I’m not lying,” Tony says. “Peter’s sick, and as soon as he feels a little better, I’ll let you see him.”

“Give him some medicine!” Morgan exclaims, holding her hands out to the sides like she doesn’t understand why she’s having to tell him this. “Give him the purple kind!”

Tony snorts, hanging his head. “Okay,” he says. “I’ll try that.”

“Miss Magoo,” Rhodey says, from behind them. “Let’s go up to the living room and wait for Mommy to come back, yeah?”

“Where’s Mommy?” Tony asks, looking at him over his shoulder. The idea that she’s gone and he didn’t know about it makes a pit open up in his stomach. 

“Just catching up on some stuff,” Rhodey says. “Uh, some reporters wanted to do interviews about SI’s projects, and I know she said she wants to field questions about Spider-Man just in case they come up.”

Tony swallows hard. He knows he’s gonna have to bring that subject up with Peter at some point. Telling people that Spider-Man is back, that he’s alive. The public wants to know, people care, they’ve been wondering. But he knows it’s not the right time, not yet, not at all.

It feels like there’s a balloon in his chest, and he’s gotta get back to Peter. He leans in, pressing a triplet of kisses to Morgan’s cheek, and she twists the collar of his t-shirt in her fist. “Love you honey bun,” he whispers in her ear. “I’ll give him the purple stuff, see how that works.”

“Good,” Morgan says, trying to pout at him when he draws back, but he makes her smile when he pokes her in the stomach. “Love you too.”

Tony straightens up, arranges Peter’s stuff on the tray, and gives Rhodey a look on his way out. “Uh, text me when she gets back, yeah?”

“Definitely,” Rhodey says. “Nat and Clint are combing around the city today, so I’ll let you know about that too. Steve, Sam and Buck are in Jersey.”

“I gotta talk to Sam, too,” Tony says. “About the whole, you know. Therapy thing.”

“I’ll pass it along,” Rhodey says, walking over and stealing one of Morgan’s goldfish. She swats at him and he skitters away. 

“What would I do without you?” Tony asks, as Rhodey holds the door open for him.

“Wither away,” Rhodey says, smiling at him.

_That’s true, that’s true_ Tony thinks, as he heads down the hallway towards where May and the kid are. 

He really wishes he could get Peter to leave his room. He needs to stretch his legs, move around more than he does, and Tony is anxiously waiting for the day when Peter asks to see his friends. After what happened, after the phone calls, Tony worries that he’s not even trying to make plans. But Peter stares at those framed photos by his bed and Tony can see the longing in his eyes. He doesn’t want to push him, but he wants the best for him. He needs him to be better, because Peter—Peter is amazing. Peter deserves the exact goddamn opposite of this.

They brought in the easy chair from the third floor yesterday, and Tony expects May to be sitting there when he goes back in. But, instead, she’s sitting on the ground by his dresser. Tony stares, and she smiles up at him. 

“Didn’t fall, right?” Tony asks, weaving around her and putting the food on Peter’s bedside table. The kid is sleeping again, which both calms and worries Tony.

He turns and looks at May. “No,” she says, but she doesn’t explain why she’s on the ground. She just pats the space beside her. Tony doesn’t put up a fight, just walks over and takes his place there. “I encouraged him to sleep some since he was basically up all night—I don’t know what to do about these nightmares, but he’s afraid to sleep, afraid to wake up—”

“Maybe some teas or something,” Tony says, stupidly. “I’m gonna get Sam in here to talk to him soon, so hopefully that’ll help. As soon as Peter’ll let me.”

“Well, a little before he went to sleep, he asked me to ask you for Ned and MJ,” May says. “So there’s...there’s that.”

Tony tries not to startle too visibly. The last couple days have been breakdown after breakdown about this exact topic, so the idea of him finally settling on it is more than a little shocking. “Really?” he asks.

“Yeah,” May says. She shrugs. “I don’t know what changed, but he said as soon as you could.” She picks at the hem of her sleeve. “He’s got a war going on in his head. I think he—managed to convince himself.”

“Alright,” Tony says. He quickly pulls out his phone, tells Happy the good news, asking him to go retrieve the kids as soon as he’s able. “Do you know if he, uh. Told them about, uh—”

“The eye?” May says. “I don’t know. He didn’t mention it to me.”

“Me either,” Tony says.

There’s a brief silence, the two of them staring over at him. Being on the floor like this reminds Tony of the other day, with the broken trophy, how Peter was sucked back into some horrific memory. Tony just held him. He didn’t wanna let him go. 

“I’m glad I’ve got you to do this with,” May says. “I was never ready for it, not even to be an aunt in the beginning, but then he was suddenly ours and then _mine_ and then Spider-Man—I just. He’s my angel, my baby, but to have someone who—who loves him as much as you do, here to support him and work alongside me for his well-being?” She shakes her head at him, smiling softly. “Well, thank God, honestly. You’re keeping me together too.”

“Right back at you,” Tony says, leaning into her space. “He’s—well, I’d do anything for him. You know that.”

“I know,” she says. “Watching you two together just warms my heart. It feels right, it’s—it’s amazing. Ben would be—beyond ecstatic about it, and not too much got him that way.”

“I hope I can keep making him proud,” Tony says. He thinks about the kid’s uncle a lot. What they would have thought of each other. 

“You will,” May says, reaching over and holding his metal hand like it's the most normal thing in the world. “I know it.”

Tony smiles at her, and he watches her sigh. She stares off at the wall, shifting her lips to the side. “Something else?” he asks, worried.

“Work’s just giving me a problem,” she says. “They don’t seem to be taking this ‘family emergency’ excuse anymore. Not really sure, uh, what to say. Because that’s exactly what it is. I don’t wanna leave him for a whole shift, not right now. It’s just...too much time.”

That makes Tony’s blood boil, and he swallows hard. “I’ll have someone talk to them,” he says. “Or I will myself. That’ll scare ‘em into submission.”

She snorts. “Not quite yet,” she says. “I’ll tell you when it gets to Tony Stark appearance time.”

“Fine,” he says. “But I will—send _someone_ along, so they’ll leave you alone.” His phone buzzes again. He quickly retrieves it, and reads the message from Happy.

_Turns out they’re four blocks away?? And they have been since they found out he’s here?? At this bakery where they can stare up at the tower? I’m going to get them now but they’ll be here a lot faster than we would have imagined. Because why wouldn’t Peter’s friends be exactly as over the top as he always is :)_

Tony taps his fingers on the edge of his phone. _Clang clang clang._ One day he’ll break it.

“What is it?” May asks. 

“They’re uh—I guess I’m not surprised, considering the amount of love Peter inspires, but they’ve apparently made a bakery four blocks away their home base because they can stare up at the tower, so he’s gonna grab them from there. But that means they’ll be here a lot quicker than we would have expected, which means he’ll—still be asleep, probably.”

May hums to herself. “And they’ll be around for the wake-up, which is always hard,” she says.

“Yeah,” Tony says, trying to work out the problem for himself. 

“Well, we can—let them see him, briefly, just so they can get their eyes on him, and then explain the nightmares and how they take him a bit to wake up from, and we can set them up in the living room or something. One of us stay with Peter, one of us stay with them. And if the one of us that stays with Peter needs help from the other, well, they’ll have to be alone for a couple while we help him. And then they can come in, here’s hoping he’ll still want to see them and not get cold feet when the time comes.”

Tony stares at her, a smile forming on his face. “You really know how to work out your Peter problems, huh?”

“Oh yeah, I’ve got a lot of experience,” she says. “You’re good to bounce off of.”

“Well, I try,” he says.

~

It doesn’t take them any time at all to arrive, and May stays with Peter while Tony goes to meet them at the elevator. He doesn’t know why he feels nervous, standing there and waiting, watching as the numbers count up and up and up. These are just Peter’s friends. He’s met them before. Ned is nothing, Ned is a creampuff, but the girl—she’s a hard one to crack. She almost reminds him of a past version of himself, when it comes to her defense mechanisms, the face she puts on for everybody else so they don’t see the real her. But it’s her fierce protectiveness, the way she carries it in her shoulders and in her hands—he knows that. He’s seen that. He’s carried it, too. She doesn’t trust him, or anyone else, when it comes to Peter. He isn’t even sure if she trusts herself.

Suddenly, he can hear them. The doors aren’t open, they aren’t even here yet. But he can hear them, their voices, Ned and Michelle in time with each other, sending Happy through a verbal lashing. He can hear them down the goddamn elevator shaft. It gets louder as they get closer, and he can hardly make out words with the way they’re talking over each other, and he’s sure it’s even more difficult for Happy, being right up close to their minefield.

The elevator arrives, and it sounds almost _manic_. It dings, and the doors open. Just as Tony was imagining—Happy is standing in the middle of the two of them, his arms crossed, a false and wavering mask over his features. Michelle on his right, Ned on his left, both in the middle of cutting and strong hand gestures to help illustrate their points. Ned has shopping bags. About four of them. 

It all goes quiet when they realize where they are.

“Thank God,” Happy says, pushing through them and leaving the elevator first.

Michelle and Ned quickly follow, all their previous bravado gone now that they’re on the floor where Peter is. They look at Tony with unasked questions, and Michelle holds her chin high, like there are plenty of things she wants to say to him, too. She’s wearing that necklace Peter got her, the one he sent Tony twenty texts freaking out about. It’s broken now, like Happy said. But she’s still wearing it. 

“Sorry, sorry, Mr. Happy,” Ned says, waving a hand in his direction. He puts his bags down on the closest chair. “We’re just—we’re just—we’re just concerned about our friend, you understand that—”

“Yeah, yeah, I yield the floor to Tony now,” Happy says, holding his hands out in Tony’s direction. “All him.”

“First things first,” Tony says, looking back and forth between the two of them. “I don’t know how much he’s told you—”

“Not much,” Michelle says, softly. “He doesn’t seem good.”

“He’s not,” Tony says. “And it’s a big deal he was able to build himself up to this. He’s been wanting to see you but there’s—what was done—” Tony sucks in a breath, trying to gather his thoughts. “The man who had him was a lunatic. The kind of person who has the capability of tearing apart the inside of your head, what you mean to yourself, what you think you mean to other people—he messed up our boy really bad, but Peter is fighting tooth and nail to try and be the person he was before. It’s gonna—it’s gonna take a bit. But you need to be—uh, understanding of the fact that things—are difficult for him, right now. He’s questioning his every move and he’s trying not to, he’s seeing things that aren’t there, he’s got the voice of a maniac in his head repeating all the terrible shit he told him when he had him. He absolutely said things about you two, about me, about May, about everyone, while he was torturing Peter. You just gotta remind him that you love him, no matter what, and I know that you do.”

“We do,” Ned says, fast. “No matter what. Sincerely.”

“I know,” Tony says. He looks over his shoulder, and back at them again. “He’s sleeping right now. I’m gonna let you guys take a peek at him, because I get that feeling of wanting to see something for yourself when you’ve been so—anxious, but, uh, he doesn’t have the easiest time waking up, or he hasn’t been since he got back. So we don’t wanna overwhelm him on that front. You guys can hang out in the living room until we’ve got him awake and then we’ll bring you back in. Deal?”

“Yes,” Ned says, and he looks at Michelle.

“Okay,” she says, tentatively.

It’s like she knows there’s something he’s not saying, something he’s leaving out, something that’s lodged in his own throat, like Peter described with his voice. He’s afraid to say it. He doesn’t know if they know. 

Tony glances at Happy, receives an encouraging nod, and he sucks in a breath. “Has he told you—about the, uh...physical injury he sustained?”

They both stare at him, shaking their heads slowly. 

Tony clears his throat. “Peter lost his left eye,” he says. He watches their reactions closely. Ned’s own eyes go wide, his lower lip trembling, and Michelle glances down, chills cropping up on her arms. She closes in on herself, and moves a little closer to Ned. 

“We’re not really talking about it,” Tony says. “Not out loud, unless he does. And even then, we’re careful. Alright?”

“Got it,” Ned says, slowly, still full of shock. Michelle just nods.

“Okay,” Tony says. He tries to portray strength now that they’re here, even though he still feels like curling into a ball and crying out his feelings, just like he has wanted to since the moment Peter got back. He starts walking and he hears them follow, hears Happy take an exhausted seat in the red plushy chair.

May is waiting outside the door when they turn into the hallway, holding onto the knob. She smiles softly when she sees them, and Tony knows she probably would have been a better welcoming committee than he was. 

“Hi, you two,” she says, glancing back and forth between them.

“Hi, May.”

“Hi, Mrs. Parker.”

“He’s asleep still,” May says, but she looks up at Tony this time. “But this one seems—I don’t know. Calmer?”

“Good,” Tony croaks, immediately embarrassed of how his voice sounds. 

She nods at him, smiling softly, and then she opens the door. 

Peter couldn’t look more like an angel if they stuck a halo on top of his head. He’s turned onto his side now, both hands tucked under his cheek, breathing softly through his mouth. It’s not the fitful sleep they’ve been used to contending with, his brows aren’t furrowed, forehead worried, eye clenched and searching. He just looks sweet and calm. 

Michelle and Ned slowly walk into the room, like they’re approaching one of the statues in the MET, and Tony and May stay by the door. 

“Maybe he knew they were coming,” Tony whispers, glancing down at May. “Because he asked you, and now he’s—he’s dreaming about them, that’s why he’s—sleeping well, this time.” Tony wishes. He hopes.

“Could be,” May says. “He needs to wake up and eat that sandwich before I eat it.”

Tony snorts. “I should just bag it up and put it in the fridge.”

“Not yet, let’s give him another half hour or so, because I know he was hungry earlier,” she says. 

They watch. Ned and Michelle just kind of stand there, staring down at him, and they whisper things to each other. Tony watches Ned reach up and squeeze Michelle’s shoulder, and she wipes at her own eyes. He knows the eye thing is probably shocking to them, but there isn’t much he can do to prepare people for that. At least the bandage looks better than the open socket.

Which reminds him that Helen should probably change the packing again. It can’t fucking be comfortable, and they’ve gotta start thinking about next steps. For a bunch of different things. 

Michelle kneels down close to Peter’s side. She gently reaches out, brushing his hair back from his forehead, lingering in the touch. She hesitates for a brief moment—Tony can see her arm shaking—and then she leans in, pressing a kiss to Peter’s forehead. It’s long and sweet, makes May gasp, reminds Tony of so many times in his own life.

_“What was that for?” he asks Pepper, from his med bay bed, as she hovers over him._

_“Think you might deserve it,” she says, smiling softly at him._

_“What about one more?” he asks, trying to sound particularly sickly, despite the fact that he’s got so many burns and cuts that they can’t put a number on it._

_She smiles again. Caresses his cheek. “Okay,” she says. “One more.”_

_She presses her lips to his forehead three more times._

Michelle doesn’t do the same, not yet, though it looks like she wants to. She wipes at her eyes as she straightens back up, and she watches as Ned presses his hand to Peter’s shoulder. He whispers something, but Tony can’t hear. 

“I’m glad he has them,” May says, leaning into Tony. “I think they’ll help him too.”

Tony nods, but as soon as Michelle turns around, he knows he’s in for it. It’s just the expression on her face. Pure, fiery anger. She brushes past him, careful not to knock into May, and it’s as if she’s dragging Ned out by the mere fact that he got caught in her orbit. May shoots Tony a worried look, and they all move out into the hallway. She closes the door behind her, almost all the way but not quite, just in case Peter calls for them. 

Michelle paces back and forth in the hallway, and Ned just cries softly, leaning against the wall. “How did this—where did you find him?” she asks, louder than he’s ever heard her. 

Tony crosses his arms over his chest, feeling sick. “We didn’t,” he says, feeling stilted. “He—he came to us.”

Her eyes go wild. “He _escaped?_” 

Tony nods, ashamed. 

“How the hell did you let this happen?” she asks, looking deeply betrayed. “How? You’re Tony Stark, you’re Iron Man, savior of the damn world, and you love him, you supposedly love him, so how could you let this happen? A whole month. A whole entire month and you still weren’t able to find him, he had to come back on his own, and _without his eye—_”

“Michelle,” May starts. 

“No, she’s right,” Tony says, swallowing hard, feeling like he’s treading water in the middle of the ocean. “She is, I—I should have done more. I should have done—”

“_No,_” May asserts. And she steps out in front of him. He’s crying, in front of Peter’s friends, like an absolute asshole, and he tries to wipe the tears away before they can see. May keeps on, focused on Michelle. “Sweetheart, I know how much you care about Peter. I know how this looks, and it’s awful, and we feel completely useless on the daily because we can’t help him in the ways we want to. Tony didn’t advertise his search efforts. That’s not what this was about. But he went well beyond what I ever thought was possible—he pushed himself to the edge, a man who nearly died facing an alien threat that we only thought existed in bad sci-fi movies. Just eight months ago. He didn’t sleep, he didn’t eat, Peter was and has been his number one priority since that bastard showed up on your school trip.” 

Her breath wavers, and he doesn’t deserve her defense. He doesn’t. But she keeps on anyway. 

“I understand how hard it is, to see our boy like that. I get it, more than anyone. But Tony isn’t the enemy here, sweetheart. He loves Peter to the moon and back. He tried so hard, he did everything he could every moment he was gone, and he still is.”

There’s a deep silence, and then Michelle shakes her head. “I’m sorry,” she says. “I just—”

“Don’t apologize,” Tony says. “I get it, really—”

“No, I—freaked out,” she says, shaking her head. She wipes at her eyes again, and seems to touch the necklace without thinking about it. “I’m sorry, I know you—I know—” She reaches up, wiping her face, and then without a second moment she rushes him, throwing her arms around his waist in a hug.

“Oh,” he says, stupidly, and his arms come up around her on instinct. Then Ned rushes into the hug too, wrapping his arms around the two of them. Tony laughs a little bit, holding him too.

He doesn’t say it. But he still thinks she was right. God, he didn’t do enough. If he had done enough, he would have found him. He would have gotten him back before Beck took his eye. Before he inflicted all this emotional abuse on him. 

If he really loved Peter enough, he should have been able to save him. 

After all. It’s his damn fault the kid was taken in the first place.

~

Peter dreams of resting his head on MJ’s shoulder. It’s like they’re somewhere far away, on a beach, and there’s a big red umbrella keeping them in the shade. Tony is teaching Ned how to grill hot dogs, as if Tony knows anything about it to begin with. May is carrying Morgan around, helping Happy and Pepper make a sand castle that keeps getting washed away. 

Peter keeps hearing Beck’s voice. Like he’s in the water. Waiting. 

“Do you hear that?” he asks, not opening his eyes. _Two eyes. Not One. That’s how he knows this is a dream. _

MJ runs his fingers through his hair. She’s wearing a hat she doesn’t want to wear, one of the floppy ones, and he got it for her to keep the sun out of her eyes. He’s under the brim of it too. 

“Nope,” she says. “I don’t hear anything.”

He wakes up with a gasp, and there’s nothing to hold him, nothing to draw him back down, nothing to make the nightmare last longer. But it wasn’t a nightmare, for once, and he sees May sitting at the edge of his bed. She stares at him quizzically.

“You alright, baby?” she asks. “That was—usually it’s a little harder. Or it has been.”

His heart is still beating fast, but she’s right. This was—this was better. A lot better. “No, I’m—I’m okay, I think,” he says. “It wasn’t...it wasn’t a bad one.” He blows out a breath. 

“Good,” she says, pure relief on her face. “I’m glad.”

“How long was I asleep?” Peter asks, quickly pushing himself up.

“Enough that I almost ate that sandwich,” May says, pointing. He follows the line of her finger and sees it on his bedside table, and his stomach growls. 

“I’m glad you didn’t,” he says, managing a smile for her, and he scoots over, sitting up. He quickly grabs it and takes a big bite. He’s been able to enjoy things of his own choosing here, for once. Beck had the worst fucking taste in food. 

_GOTTA KEEP EATING. CAN’T LET YOU GET ALL NASTY AND SKINNY AND SICKLY, HUH? GOTTA BE COMPLETELY HEALTHY FOR ME, PETEY PIE._

Peter shudders, taking another bite.

“Baby, your friends are here.”

Peter stops. Looks over at her. His world slows down. 

“You remember asking me, right?” she asks, and she sounds a little nervous.

“Yeah,” he says, fast, his heart slamming up against his ribcage. “Yeah, yeah. I do.” He wants to take another bite of the sandwich but he puts it down. There’s excitement and fear fluttering in his stomach. He was able to build himself up, earlier. He couldn’t stop thinking about them. He needed to see them, almost as much as he needed to breathe. But, the fear, it comes in the form of Beck’s words. Screaming in his ears.

_THEY’D HATE YOU NOW, IF THEY SAW YOU. THEY’D HATE YOU. THEY’D BE ASHAMED._

“But he was a liar,” Peter whispers, trying to convince himself.

“What, sweetheart?” May asks.

“Nothing,” Peter says. No panic, no panic, don’t panic. Don’t panic. It’s just them. It’s just them. He was a liar. All he did was lie.

Beck shudders to life in the corner by the doorway. He raises his eyebrows at Peter, and bends over in laughter.

Peter feels cold, even though the room is still so hot. May follows his gaze and he reaches up, covering the stolen eye. Sometimes, when he covers it, it’s like the hallucinations aren’t so vivid. 

“It’s just us in here, Peter,” May says. “Just me and you right now. Nobody else.”

Peter blows out a breath. “I know,” he says. Beck _tsks_ at him, and Peter looks back at his sandwich and chips. “Can I, uh, finish this. And then. Brush my teeth, and then see them?” He doesn’t wanna smell like cool ranch, even though he usually smells like that around Ned. But not. Not around MJ. 

“Yup,” May says, smiling a little bit at him. 

Peter doesn’t look at Beck while he eats. Maybe, maybe if he doesn’t look at him, he’ll go away. Maybe, if he doesn’t look at him, he won’t ruin this moment Peter has been craving for more than a month now. He doesn’t want him to impose himself on them. He doesn’t want to see them merging together. Thank God it doesn’t happen with Tony and May, but if it happens with them...Peter doesn’t know if he’ll be able to handle it. He tries to get himself to chill out, tries to ignore everything that’s going on in his head, every bomb, every explosion, the way the room moves. 

He’s gonna see them. He wants to see them. He _has_ to see them.

He drifts a little bit while he eats, trying not to panic, but then all of a sudden he’s brushing his teeth and telling May he’s ready. She’s texting Tony. He sways, and panics, doesn’t panic, no no, doesn’t panic, and May reaches out once he’s back in the bedroom and holds his hand. 

“It’ll be fine,” she says, shocking him back to reality. 

He closes his eye, standing there. He doesn’t look good enough. He should have changed his clothes. When did he last change them? Last night, last night, it wasn’t that long ago. His body still hurts, all over, and he doesn’t know when that’s gonna stop. He doesn’t want to flinch away from them. He doesn’t want to remember what it was like when they died in Beck’s illusions. When he couldn’t save them. He doesn’t want them to see it in his eyes. His eye. His eye. Only one. 

He wonders what they’ll think of that. Peter Parker only has one eye now. Only one eye.

The door opens and he nearly throws up. It’s Tony, and he pushes it open all the way, and then—

Then he’s got an armful of Ned. 

He doesn’t say anything, practically launches himself across the room and holds Peter as tight as he can. Peter laughs, filled with light and happiness, and he buries his face in his best friend’s shoulder, not wanting to let go. 

“It’s so good to see—so good to be with you,” Ned says, and Peter wonders if he’s specifically trying to avoid any words or phrases having to do with eyes. He doesn’t care. He doesn’t care. The room seems brighter, somehow, even with his eye closed. He can’t hear Beck’s voice.

“Good to see you too,” Peter says, tears in his voice, and Ned picks him up a little off his feet, drawing out a peal of laughter from Peter’s throat. “Oh my God, dude.”

“I’m sorry—”

“No!” Peter laughs, still holding onto him.

Ned pulls away to look at him, and he doesn’t seem sad or scared or horrified at all. He just grins, patting Peter’s cheek. “I really missed you.”

“I really missed you too,” Peter says, nearly overwhelmed with emotion.

“And, uh, MJ’s here,” Ned says, stepping aside. “We, uh, we were kinda acting like freaks, we made Derry’s Bakery our home base because we could see your window from there and we kept ordering snickerdoodles and macaroons, we actually brought some—”

Peter stares at her. 

She’s wearing...she’s wearing the necklace. 

She’s actually wearing the necklace. The one he got her. The one he asked Happy to give to her, in case...in case anything happened. It's broken, but—

She’s wearing it.

Ned keeps talking but Peter can’t hear him anymore. He can’t hear anything but MJ’s heart beating, can only see the way she’s looking at him. Beck isn’t with them. He isn't. He isn’t even here right now. Peter can’t hear him either. Not right now. Not right now. Peter knows he’ll come back, he knows he will, he always does, but right now—right now—

_Don’t think about him. Not right now. Not right now. Think about her. Look at how she’s looking at you. Oh my God._

“Hi,” MJ says, softly, approaching him. 

“Hi,” Peter says back, his face going hot.

Her eyes are tracing across his face. They don’t land on the bandage. They don’t stay there. God, has she always been this beautiful? She’s more beautiful than he remembers. Her hair, the shape of her face, her collar bones, her eyelashes. Everything. Her. 

She reaches out when she’s close enough, and takes his hands in her own. She holds them softly, gently, but firm, like she’s ready to fight off anybody who tries to break them apart.

And then she. She leans in and. Presses their foreheads together.

He almost blacks out. 

“Hi,” she says again, inches from his face, tears shimmering in her eyes.

“Hi,” he responds, in a rush of breath, and he’s crying too.

They’re here. They’re here. And he’s not freaking out. He’s not freaking out. Well, he’s freaking out, but not in a bad way, not in a Beck way. She slips a little closer, and presses a chaste kiss to his cheek before letting go of his hands and tugging him into a hug. She runs her hands up and down his back, and Peter closes his eye, breathing her in.

Safe.

Somewhere, buried and low, Beck’s voice whispers _for now._


	3. feels like stars

Peter watches them. 

It’s like they’re putting on a show, like they think someone is listening, and half the time he’s gotta remind himself that someone is him. He’s listening, they’re here for him, they’re talking to him. But he gets caught up in the details. The details that Beck couldn’t capture when he’d create his illusions—he never got MJ’s hair right. Or Ned’s eyebrows. Or the way Ned says his name. Or MJ’s nails. Little things. Little things that make them who they are. Beck thought he was some grand master of whatever the hell, but he was too far gone, too high on himself to pay attention to what mattered. 

Beck’s here, finally. The Beck of Peter’s head. Back, and hovering. Peter knew he’d be coming, and he stands and paces and makes sharp movements like he used to—a hand coming for Peter’s throat, rushing up to him in attempts to intimidate—but right now Peter can’t hear him. He’s shouting, alright, his mouth contorting in anger, but Peter can’t hear him. 

He doesn’t let himself. 

Peter tries to hold it together. He keeps glancing over at May, sitting in the easy chair, reading a book and pretending she isn’t listening to everything they’re saying. But if she’s here, he’s safe. If she’s here, Beck can’t get him. Or maybe he needs them both here. Both her and Tony. Peter doesn’t know where Tony is—probably off with his real family. Finally getting a real break from Peter.

Beck snickers at him, for thinking that, and Peter tries to banish the thought from his head. _Don’t make him happy._

“And this one,” Ned says, pulling a third Star Wars Lego set, one of the big ones from the fourth season of the Mandalorian. “This one isn’t even out yet, Peter. They put it on the shelf and I freaked out and I tried to buy it and they said no but I got all _WELL I WANNA SPEAK TO THE MANAGER_ on them and MJ was with me and you know how she freaks out retail managers—”

“Only at the right time,” MJ says, glancing at Peter. “Most of them are horribly abused in a shitty corporate hellscape that they’re stuck in because they can’t find anything better.”

“Facts,” Ned says.

Peter snorts. “But they let you have it?”

“_And_ discounted,” Ned says. He puts it on the floor with the other two sets, and Beck makes a move to kick them all over before pacing back over to the corner. Peter doesn’t look at him. 

“So yeah,” Ned says, flopping down on the bed next to Peter. “We’ve got lots we can do, if you wanna do them. Or MJ and I could just build them and you can watch us.”

Peter looks at her, awash with something new and prickling in his stomach. “MJ, you—you built Lego sets with Ned?”

She sighs, her mouth pursed in a small smile. “Maybe I did, maybe I didn’t.”

“Maybe you _did_,” Ned says, scoffing. “I’ve got photos, she knows I’ve got photos.”

She’s smiling fully now, and it’s enough to make Peter feel dazed, ignoring the darkness that eats up half his vision. He doesn’t know how he ever even looked at her with two eyes to begin with. Looking at her is like looking directly into the sun.

_JESUS CHRIST, YOU’RE PATHETIC AS HELL. FUCK, GET THAT STUPID FUCKING PUPPY DOG LOOK OFF YOUR FACE. SHE’S DEAD. AND EVEN IF SHE WAS ALIVE, SHE’D THINK YOU WERE A MORON. YOU’RE THE STUPIDEST KID I’VE EVER MET, NOBODY WOULD EVER WANT YOU, PETER. BUT ESPECIALLY NOT THIS GIRL._

“I just did it so I could have a little practice for when Peter got back,” MJ says. “So I could run the two of you over and build half the thing before you even got a chance.”

Peter laughs a little bit, and he can see Beck out of the corner of his eye. Moving around, erratic. Peter doesn’t look, but he can feel the heaviness in his shoulders. His fear bearing down on him. His anxiety. He becomes very aware of his eye. His lack of eye. It hurts. The packing is starting to hurt. 

“So you were, uh, planning on it,” Peter says, without thinking. “On me, um. Coming back.”

MJ stares at him then, and he looks away from her, cracking his jaw. He doesn’t look over at the demonic spectre in the corner, or at May, either, though he can feel her rapt attention. He looks down at his own hand, and clenches his fist. 

_Don’t don’t don’t. Don’t ruin this. _

“Of course,” she says, softly, like she did in the hotel room before Ned came in and her guard went back up. There was so much going on, but he saw it. He questioned it, in his head, among all the other things. Was she lying to him? Trying to protect her own feelings? Thinking of it now makes his heart ache. Another life. A boy with two eyes. One that wasn’t held prisoner and tortured for an entire month. Someone who was capable, back then. 

Beck took all that away from him.

MJ keeps talking. “Of course,” she says again. “The whole time, we both knew that—we knew we’d get you back. There was just no way. There was no way you weren’t gonna come back.”

He doesn’t know what it makes him feel. Because at the time, he’d given up. After the incident, after that, he just knew—he knew he was gonna die there. And here they were, hoping. Tony and May, the parental partnership he never could have dreamed of, they were searching, sending out every damn superhero possible to look for him. And Ned and MJ, his best friend and the—the girl he—well, they were waiting. They were waiting on him. And there was a time when he’d given up. A time when he was planning on dying.

He closes his eye, hums a little bit. His heart is shredding itself.

“Peter?” May asks, and he hears the easy chair creak. 

“It’s okay, Mrs. Parker,” MJ says. “Ned, hey.”

“Oh.”

Peter feels them both slowly take his hands, on either side of him. They lay back and adjust on the bed so all three of them are laying in a line, their feet hanging off the edge. Ned loosely holds on, his thumb tracing back and forth across Peter’s skin, and MJ threads their fingers together in a tight hold.

Beck could never replicate this either. The way their hands felt.

“Hey, just relax, alright?” MJ says, squeezing his hand. “Here.”

Measured breaths. Measured breaths. Then he hears a song.

_Taking over this town, they should worry_  
_But these problems aside, I think I taught you well_  
_That we won’t run, and we won’t run, and we won’t run_

She’s played it for him before. Before, after they blipped back. When the friendship started. The real friendship. When they started talking like real people, where she’d stop him in the hallway, when he’d buy her sodas and she wouldn’t reject them, when she tossed him notes in Chemistry and waited for him and Ned at the end of the day. She played this song, when the three of them were sitting inside the Oculus. When she told him about how much she hated that mall and how ugly it was. Ned bought them Dip n’ Dots. MJ was embarrassed of ‘basic cookies and cream’. 

Beck never let him listen to music. Beck listened to music on old, oversized headphones. He’d dance around like an asshole, and tell Peter what he was missing out on.

_Howling ghosts, they reappear_  
_In mountains that are stacked with fear_  
_But you’re a king and I’m a lionheart_  
_A lionheart_

He doesn’t fall asleep. He doesn’t let himself. But he almost feels high on the moment, the darkness shimmering like purple night instead of consuming him in terror. He was strong enough to get them here. He was. Now they’re holding his hands. They’re relaxing and listening to music. Like they used to. 

Life gives him a moment. But that’s all. 

_STOP FUCKING DAYDREAMING. STOP DREAMING OF FUCKING YOUR LITTLE DEAD GIRLFRIEND. WAKE UP. WAKE UP._

His eye snaps open, and Beck is there. Hovering over him. High definition, down to how the goddamn man _smelled_, sweat and alcohol, and blood. Peter’s blood. He’s inches from his face, and his eyes are wild, flashing like they did when he got a new idea, when he’d approach Peter with bad intentions. But all of his intentions were bad. Every move he fucking made.

He smiles. Sickeningly wide, vile. He’s got blood on his hands. He’s got blood all over him, and so does Peter. Peter does too.

“Hello, one-eyed Willy,” Beck whispers. 

Peter squeezes his eye shut again. He’s panicking. He’s panicking, he’s freaking out, he’s freaking out. The music is still playing but it’s warped, now, slow and circusy. “Uh, uh, MJ? Ned?” He hums a little, doesn’t recognize his own voice.

“What’s wrong?” MJ asks. He can feel her sit up, and cover his hand with her other one.

“Peter?” Ned asks, touching his shoulder with his free hand. 

Peter’s afraid to open his eye again. His heart is beating so fast, it reminds him—it reminds him of when—

_STOP. STOP FUCKING SCREAMING OR I’M GONNA CUT RIGHT THROUGH YOU, THEN WHAT THE HELL ARE WE GONNA—PETER, I SWEAR TO FUCKING GOD, YOU’RE NOT GONNA FUCK WITH ME, NOT RIGHT NOW—_

He hears his own voice, too.

_Tony, help me! Tony, please, please, please, help me, help me! Find me, please, Tony, help! Help, help!_

Beck told him to stop screaming for someone who wasn’t coming.

“Peter,” MJ says, and she squeezes his hand. 

“Honey?” May asks. “Talk to us, you’re alright.”

Peter disentangles himself from Ned and MJ, not opening his eye, and he’s afraid, afraid Beck is gonna grab him, _possess him_, pin him the fuck down and drag him away again, and he shoots up and off the bed, stumbling, reaching a wavering hand out so he doesn’t run directly into his dresser. He needs to find Tony now, he _needs_ to, because he couldn’t have him then but he’s here now, Tony’s here now and if Tony’s here then Beck isn’t. He’s gotta see Tony. He’s gotta see him.

_You’re ruining it. You’re ruining it._

He knows. He knows.

The world is opening up all around him as he makes for the door, patches here, the ground falling away there, and he can hear the buzzing of the drones, can hear the illusions shuddering to life. Beck is screaming somewhere behind him—Peter’s leaving them with him, he’s leaving them with him—and he turns, sees all three of them on his heels, and they stop when he stops.

“Peter, talk to us,” Ned says, reaching out for him. “You’re okay.”

_YOU BETTER FUCKING FIND HIM, YOU KEEP SCREAMING LIKE THAT. WHERE IS HE?WHERE THE FUCK IS HE, HUH? GO LOOK! GO LOOK! OH, YOU FUCKING CAN’T. LEGS TOO JELLY, HUH? YEAH, YOU GOT THE GOOD STUFF. THAT’S WHAT YOU GET FOR NOT BEING GRATEFUL._

They’re good, they’re good, Peter sees them, they’re good, and he takes one step backwards and nearly topples down to the ground. MJ rushes forward and grabs onto him before he falls, one arm around his waist and the other on his shoulder. He sways towards her for a second—she’s so close, she’s so close. He can smell her perfume. 

_SHE’LL NEVER WANT YOU. NEVER._

Then he feels it—a phantom pain, a stilted memory that grabs at him, wraps its hands around him. He hears Beck laughing, just laughing, and then he feels the burn—the smoldering slip of steel pressing against his shoulder blade. He feels it—the utter, horrifying pain, blistering and shocking like it’s happening again now, happening all over again.

He yanks himself away from MJ as he screams—she can’t get burned too, he’s gotta get away from her or Beck will hurt her too—and he’s not tied down now, he’s not drugged, he can get away, he can fight back, he can find Tony.

He called for Tony so often, back then. He’s ashamed of it now. Like a seven year old in an Iron Man mask. Iron Man could save him. Tony Stark could save him. If Peter couldn’t save himself, there was only one person who could.

The burn boils on his back, and he braces his hand on the wall, wincing.

One eye, one eye, Jesus, he only has _one eye—_

“Baby, what’s going on?” May asks, close to him, her hand nearly on top of the burn. “I promise you, you’re safe—”

“Where’s Tony?” Peter says, through gritted teeth, ready to cry again. His brain is swirling with all of it—the fear, the panic, the dripping, the sound of the radiator, Beck’s boots, the way he clamored around. The sound of Peter’s own wrists in those cuffs, and he should have been able to get out, he’s stronger than that, he’s fucking stronger than that, he can break that shit no problem, what the hell kind of metal did Beck use, Peter still doesn’t know, he still doesn’t know—

The fog of that last day tries to strangle him. Breaking, knocking, slam, his own blood, and the knife, the knife—

He wasn’t himself. He wasn’t himself.

“I’m not sure,” May says, anxiously.

Peter’s head is heavy, his mouth like sandpaper, and he’s on fire, he’s burning, Beck is burning him, scalding, peeling skin away, and Peter gags, bracing his hand on the wall.

“Tony?” Peter calls, dizzy, and he rubs at his eye—lack of eye, the one that’s gone, how the fuck is he supposed to refer to it now—and his heart aches, his wrists throb, he can’t walk straight. “Tony?”

_PATHETIC. YOU SOUND SO FUCKING PATHETIC. _

Peter stumbles into the living room and turns into the left hallway, feeling like he’s been drugged again. Or drunk, like that one time, when Beck said he had too much gin left, and Peter wound up puking all over himself. Beck left him like that. 

He winces again, his back still simmering, and he doesn’t know why he’s crashing right now, he doesn’t know, but of course he would in front of them, of course he would, and Beck’s right, she’ll never want him now, she’ll never want him because he’s not Spider-Man, she cares about Spider-Man and he’s not that guy anymore, he’s not strong like that, he’ll never be able to put on that suit again—

“Sweetheart, how about you sit down?” May asks, and he can hear her right behind him, can feel her grasping at his shoulder. Close to the burn. Beck can burn her too. He’ll burn her too.

“May, be _careful_,” Peter says, nearly crying now, and there’s a hole in his head, there’s a hole in his fucking head—

“Honey, I promise, we’re okay,” May says. “Right guys?”

“Right, right—”

“Peter, it’s all okay. We’re here.”

“Tony,” Peter calls, his vision blurring, and he hears Happy’s voice in the next room. He pushes the door open and he sees him, Happy, looking at something his laptop.

“Peter!” Happy says, immediately leaping to his feet. “Hey, hey, you alright?”

Peter’s voice fails him again, his legs almost do too, and he doesn’t know where his brain is at—back there, back in that warehouse, where his fucking eye is—and he collapses against Happy, listening to Beck’s footsteps behind him.

_NO, YOU CAN’T HAVE HIM EITHER._

“Beck’s not here, right?” Peter asks, holding onto Happy’s arms. He’s afraid to look at him. Afraid to see Beck’s face on top of his. “Right? He’s not—he’s not behind us?”

“Tony,” Happy says, glancing over his shoulder.

Peter can’t see. His damn eye. Non eye. The darkness. It’s thick, gaining strength, getting bigger. 

“Beck’s not here,” Happy says, holding onto Peter’s arms. “That dickhead isn’t here. Promise, buddy, alright? He’s not.”

Peter closes his eye, and leans into him. _You’re ruining it, idiot, she’s here, she’s behind you, she’s watching, she can see, she still has both eyes—_

“Happy, I—” Peter stutters. _I’m not normal, I’m not normal. _

“We’re all okay,” Happy says. “We’re safe.”

_Safe._

“I’m so proud of you, Peter,” Happy says, holding onto him. “I want you to know that, alright? I saw what you did there firsthand, you took that lunatic head-on, you saved all those people, and the people you love—I’m so proud of you. Whatever you need, Peter, I’m here, alright? No matter what.”

Peter nods, his chest hurting. How the hell can anyone be proud of him? Especially Happy. He lashed out at him on that plane. He shouldn’t have, and he did. He can see Beck’s hands reaching for him in the darkness, and he opens his eye, looks up at Happy. Happy nods at him, and Beck is just over his shoulder. He’s laughing again. He’s _here_, he’s fucking here.

“He’s too close to you,” Peter whispers, looking at Happy. 

“What? Buddy—”

“Hey, hey,” Tony’s voice says, and Peter turns, chases away the darkness, and finds Tony there. “Hey, hey, what’s going on?” Tony’s hand slides across Peter’s shoulder, and Peter sags in relief. 

Beck scoffs, rolling his eyes, and he twists around, starts pacing the room.

_Tony’s here, you fucking asshole. He’s here, he’s with me. He does care, he does._

“He’s burning me,” Peter breathes, knowing in his heart that he sounds insane, and MJ is hearing him, she’s hearing him, Beck is gonna be right about that—she’s never gonna want him. “He’s, he’s—I can’t get him to go away. It’s like he—it’s like he knew—”

“What, what?” Tony asks softly, and Peter turns, doesn’t want to let the others hear him. Especially MJ. Happy seems to know and he shifts, in between Tony and Peter and the rest of them, like he’s shielding him and all his new insecurities. He moves over to say something to May, and Tony tugs Peter a little closer, bending down so he can talk softly.

“It’s like he knew I was—I was happy they were here,” Peter whispers, eye tearing, embarrassment burning hotter than the phantom pains on his back. “And he—he was getting so close. To me, to—to them, to Happy just now and I—I needed—to find you—” He realizes that Tony was in here, away from him, and Peter couldn’t even let him have that. He just had to rush in and seek him out. 

_YEAH, WHAT’D I SAY? YOU’RE JUST A BURDEN TO HIM, PETEY. THAT’S IT._

“I’m sorry,” Tony says. He pulls him against him and Peter trembles with the fear of being unwanted—by all of them. They’ll drop him soon. It’ll become too damn much, taking care of him. Then who will be there? He’ll have lost everyone.

_Fix it. Fix it. Be better. Even who you were before was better._

But Tony hugs him now, cradling his head like his does care, like Peter is important, and Peter closes his eye. “He’s not here. I promise. He’s not,” Tony says. 

_YOU KNOW WHERE I AM, DON’T YOU? YEAH. INSIDE YOUR HEAD._

“I’m sorry,” Peter whispers, holding onto him. “I didn’t—I didn’t mean—I just freaked out, I just—you, you—you can fight him off and I—and you weren’t—God, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” _You’re pathetic. _

“No sorry, Pete,” Tony says, rubbing his back. “He’s not here. You’ve been in this room a million times, you know exactly what it looks like—he’s never been here, he never will be. He doesn’t fit here. So when you see him, think of the room he’s in as you know it. He clashes, right?”

Peter pops his eye open, and looks over Tony’s shoulder. Beck is there, and he does clash, he looks out of the ordinary. He doesn’t belong here.

“I was just talking to Sam, he told me about that trick,” Tony says. He pulls back, holding Peter by the shoulders. “I know what’s in your head, kid, I wasn’t trying to get away from you. Don’t think that. Not for one second, you’re lucky I’m not following you around everywhere. I wanted to call Sam while you hung out with your friends. I want you two to talk, when you—when you're feeling up to it. I think it’ll help.”

Peter’s eye flicks over to Beck. _You don’t fucking belong here. He wasn’t trying to get away from me. I’m not a burden._

Beck phases, just a little bit.

Peter is starting to come back to earth, focusing again, and he’s not being dragged back by the memory anymore, or the pain still clinging to his skin. Now he knows everything—can hear the small talk conversation Happy is trying to have with May, MJ and Ned about the Taco Bell on Lexington. He can hear MJ’s heart beating. May twisting a strand of her own hair. Ned picking at his nails.

When will he stop being like this? He needs to stop being like this. But it feels like just yesterday—and it almost was. Peter thinks about a week ago. He was with him a week ago. He was writhing in pain while Beck cut the backs of his ankles.

“I do—I wanna talk to him,” Peter says. “Sam. I wanna—be better.”

Tony rubs his arms up and down. “You’re moving at a _spectacular_ pace,” he says. “Honestly, Peter, you’re one of the strongest people I’ve ever known. I know you’ve got a million doubts, you always have and I know you, but no one expects you to be sunshine and rainbows and completely fine right away, or ever. I’m still in my head about what happened to me back in that cave, kid.”

Peter nods at him, swallowing hard. He’s still shaking, so damn cold all the time, and Tony reaches up and touches his cheek. “You’re alright,” he says.

“I’m sor—”

“Nope,” Tony says, shaking his head. “Nope.”

Peter smiles a little bit, nodding. He’s fucking afraid to even see the looks on their faces now, and Tony can clearly tell that’s what he’s worried about. He’s about to say something when Peter turns around fast, feeling a little insane. More than a little insane. He’s been cut off from the world at large for so long—he knows it’s been turning and turning and turning. So many things happening without him.

_You just wanna distract them, distract yourself—_

_YOU ALREADY KNOW THE ANSWER. NO. ONE. CARES._

“Happy,” Peter says, feeling like he’s the most middle ground out of all of them, the one who’s the least likely to lie to him. 

Happy turns around too, and Peter can see him holding May’s hand. He doesn’t look at MJ or Ned, not yet. His face is already on fire, but it’s like frozen flames. Like he’s been locked in a freezer. Like he’s covered in mounds of snow.

“Yeah, kid?” Happy asks, stepping closer, and he’s steeped in concern, too.

“Do they—do people—are they wondering about Spider-Man?” Peter asks, his voice breaking stupidly, stupid, stupid, like every other fucking thing he’s doing. 

Happy’s face goes soft. “Yeah, Peter. Jesus, everyday people ask. Me, Tony, the Avengers, everyone keeps asking all the damn time. They’ve got local searches they cover on the news. Instagram pages, Facebook groups, people connecting on Twitter just to talk about Spider-Man and where he is. Everybody’s in on it, especially New York. People love Spidey, they’re constantly wondering and hoping he’s—hoping you’re safe.”

Peter feels Tony’s hand on his shoulder. He sees something moving out of the corner of his eye, not one of the six of them. He doesn’t look. He nods at Happy, the news making waves in his head, and he doesn’t know what he expected. He doesn’t apologize again, he knows it’s—pointless, and that Tony doesn’t wanna hear it.

“I’m, uh, I’m okay,” Peter says, and finally meets MJ’s eyes. But she doesn’t look disgusted. Not really. Not at all.

~

Tony and May hang out in the room with them for the next hour or so, which makes Peter feel safer, but he can’t stop himself from flaring up in embarrassment every time he meets MJ and Ned’s gaze. But they don’t talk about it, they don’t make excuses, they just keep on like he’s—normal. 

Then Tony takes a call, Ned winds up in the bathroom, and May falls asleep in the easy chair—Peter and MJ are basically alone. Beck—Beck is phasing.

_You don’t belong here._

He tells himself to keep telling him that, directing that kind of energy Beck’s way, because it’s not him, it’s not him, not really, it’s Peter’s addled mind torturing him, all the shit memories Beck left behind taking on their own life, taking his intentions and carrying them on in a place they shouldn’t be.

MJ takes his hand again, and somehow her boldness emboldens him too.

He starts talking. Tries to sound like himself. “I, uh, back before—before all of it, before all this happened to me, and we were just—well, we were on our trip, I had—this whole plan—”

“I know,” MJ says, like she’s aware they don’t have a ton of time alone before May wakes up, before Tony ends his call, before Ned walks back in. She’s only blushing a little bit, but he can see it anyway. “Uh. Ned told me. We hung out a lot, while you were gone, and I, uh, well—I got as much information out of him about you as he would give me.” 

Strangely enough, that doesn’t make Peter angry. It sends something fluttering in his chest, and he swallows hard. He sees Beck stalking back and forth by the doorway, but Tony is pacing too, and he walks right through him.

_You don’t belong here. You don’t belong here. Get out. Get out. _

“And, uh, that guy—Happy. He gave me the, uh. This.” She reaches up and touches the necklace, tracing her fingers over it.

“I’m sorry it’s broken,” Peter says, wincing a little bit. “It was—it was nicer, before.”

“No, I—I love it. Exactly as it is.”

Peter blows out a breath. He feels like he can’t get enough air. 

“So I guess you know, then,” he says, too many things racing around in his head. He clears his throat. ‘“I, uh, when we were talking—on our walk, uh, you were saying that you were—that you only watched me because I was—I was Spider-Man—”

“Yeah, that was a lie,” MJ says, squeezing his hand. “I—sometimes it’s hard for me, to try and—say the right thing, to the right person, at the right time, but, uh, losing you and—and getting you back, now, well, I—I’ve had some time to build myself up. Say the right thing. Everything’s the right time, now, because you’re here, because you’re—you’re back.” Her eyes are shining and there’s a small, soft smile on her face. “I like you. I do. A lot.”

He stares at her, sweating. 

_THERE’S NOTHING FOR HER IN YOU. NOT ONE FUCKING THING. SHE’D BE EMBARRASSED TO BE SEEN WITH YOU, IDIOT. YOU’RE HALF A MAN. NOT EVEN A MAN AT ALL._

He feels how Beck would put him down. The way he hammered into every single one of Peter’s doubts. He wishes he’d never shared his crush on MJ to begin with, even when he thought he could trust him. He shouldn’t have told someone he just met. He shouldn’t have fallen for all of his tricks, the way he—the way he was trying to emulate what it was to work with Tony in the field. He knew exactly how to play him. How to tug on those strings of the things Peter was missing. And Peter just told him everything. Everything he shouldn’t have.

“I’m a mess,” Peter says, getting teary, his throat hurting, his eye socket hurting, his heart hammering too fast. “I’m sure you—what everything that just happened, it was—a very clear indicator that I’m—a huge mess. I have no idea what the hell I’m gonna do from moment to moment and I—I don’t know how I’m gonna—ever be the person I was before. I’m missing. Um.” He reaches up, covers the bandage like an idiot. Like she can’t see. But it feels like he’s doing something, to acknowledge it. He puts his hand down, and she’s smiling at him like he’s something special. It finally makes him feel _warm_. “But I do, I do, uh, I do too. Like you. As I’m sure Ned said. I just don’t know—I don’t know how to be—how I should be, for you.”

She shakes her head. “You’re what I want,” she says, clearly, and it smacks him across the fucking face. “However you are. But I—I get if you need—time, slowness, whatever. That’s—that’s understandable. Completely. And utterly.”

The bathroom door opens, and Ned starts to stroll back into the main bedroom area, carrying one of the new soaps.

MJ leans in and kisses Peter on the cheek, leaving something behind that feels like stars. “I’ll wait however long you need me to wait,” she whispers into his ear. “But I’ll also be with you. Every step of the way.”

Beck starts to scream, but one look at MJ’s expression silences him. 

_You’re wrong. You’re wrong._

His heart still doubts, his head panics, but the eye he’s got left sees her. Sees her looking at him. 

“Peter,” Ned says, as MJ pulls back a little bit, trying to act like what just happened didn’t just happen. Ned holds out the soap. “You’ve got Christmas soap. Already. The sprinkled snow soap—how?”

Peter scoffs, and looks over at Tony. “He could make them distribute anything at any time, Ned. He’s Tony Stark.”

Tony sees them watching him, and he winks at them. May startles awake.

“Oh my God,” she says, wiping at her eyes. “Jesus. Sorry. I was dreaming of dinner, so maybe it’s about that time.”

It hits Peter, in that moment, how lucky he is to have all of them.

~

Tony gets Sam headed back to New York, with a few of the rest of them. The need to catch this fucker buzzes under Tony’s skin, and it clashes with the need to get Peter better, to surround him with security and love and people who can keep him safe. Tony’s mind is hazy with too many ideas, too many scenarios, and there are still some he needs to pluck out and put into action. One in particular, second on his list behind _Have Peter talk to Sam_. Getting a hold of a particular someone, in Hell’s Kitchen. 

He checks in with Natasha and Clint, both still out searching. He’s worried about Tasha out there too, after what happened to her and what Steve had to do to get her back, but she’s been intent on combing through every damn alleyway despite her recent brush with death. Tony knows she’s going at this hard because of how much he cares about Peter, but also because of what she had to go through when she was young, herself. He’s the same age as she was, when she went through what she went through.

Tony is thinking too much. He searches up losing an eye while he’s waiting for the pizzas to arrive, and he panics at the possibility of Peter having vision-related hallucinations in addition to his torture-related hallucinations. The kid has been through _enough_ to have to deal with bullshit like that, which he won’t be able to fucking differentiate from what he’s already experiencing. He’ll just think it’s all Beck.

Tony wants to rip Beck apart with his bare hands. 

They manage to get Peter and his friends into the dining room for pizza, and Tony figures he’s going overboard with the amount he keeps providing, but he wants to be the polar opposite of what Peter had to endure with that asshole, especially when it comes to what he’s got to eat.

He watches as Michelle hovers close to Peter, watches as Ned tries to hold his attention and keep him focused on the things that aren’t in his own head. Ned tells him stories that make Peter smile, that make him laugh, and whenever the kid starts to fade or get nervous, they close in on him, hold his hands, rub his back, ground him in the here and now. It reminds Tony of his own family unit. The one he made himself, the people he trusted enough to take care of him. He never talked to them about their guilt when it came to him finding his way out of that cave on his own, and at least Rhodey was able to find him in the desert. Peter had to go farther, Peter had to come all the way home without any help, any support.

Tony wonders how much of a difference it would have made if he had found Peter in the street. What that would have meant, to him.

Ned and Michelle stay for another hour or so after dinner, and then Happy takes them both home, with promises to bring them back here tomorrow. Tony can see the mixed feelings in Peter’s expression—the need to stay with them, with her, in particular, but the tiredness in his face, his movements, and the occasional wild look in his eye—Tony knows it’s been a lot, emotionally. Peter came a long way today, faced a lot despite it all, and Tony’s pride is bursting in his chest. 

It’s hard to really measure how much he loves him. 

“I’m gonna put the leftovers in the fridge and call Ned’s mom,” May says, when the three of them turn away from the descending elevator. “Do you need anything, honey?” she asks, reaching up and wiping a smear of tomato sauce off Peter’s face. 

He shakes his head at her, smiling. “I’m okay. Do you need help?”

“I’m good, sweetie pie,” she says, and she shares a smile with Tony, too. “Go relax, I’ll be back quick.” She heads back towards the dining room, and Peter shivers again, reaching up and touching the bandage over his eye. 

“That bothering you?” Tony asks, a loose arm around Peter’s shoulders as they start heading back towards his room. He tries to keep his tone light, tries not to show how horrified he is from moment to moment about Peter’s eye.

“Yeah,” Peter says, chewing on his lower lip. “I know we’re gonna have to—do something about it, but for now do you think she can just—change the dressing and wrap it again?” 

“Of course,” Tony says. “Want me to call her right now or do you wanna wait til tomorrow? We can get it done first thing if you want.”

“Right now, uh—I don’t—no, not right now.” Peter swallows hard, and glances up at him, expression open and a bit nervous. “Uh, I wanted to ask, before we...deal with all that, can I, uh—can I see Mo?” he asks. 

Tony stares down at him for a second too long, and Peter quickly looks away, tensing up.

“I mean, if you’re too worried about it, it’s fine,” Peter says, fast. “I totally get it, there’s, uh, a lot going on with me right now and Pepper might not want her—”

“Pete—kid—” Tony scoffs, shaking his head so much that he rattles his own brain. “No, no, I mean, yes, you can see her. You can absolutely see her. She has been harassing the shit out of me since you got back, literally bursting at the seams to see you—”

“How’s right now?” Peter asks. “She’s not asleep yet, right?”

“God, no,” Tony says. “She keeps worse hours than me. I’m sure she’s ready to see you. I’m sure she’s talking to Pepper about it as we speak, probably has been all day. You’re all she talks about.”

There’s a rash of red on the kid’s cheeks then, and he’s smiling. “Yeah, I—I really wanna see her.”

Tony’s heart soars, and he tries to keep himself in check, tries to remain rational. “Okay, for a little bit here, for a couple minutes, because I know you’re tired out. I don’t wanna overwhelm you.”

“I’m okay,” Peter says, as they reach his door. 

“You wouldn’t have let your pals leave at all if you were okay,” Tony says, trying not to sound harsh. He’s been trying to let Peter make as many of his own decisions as possible, another way to offset what Beck did. But he knows Morgan, despite loving her to the edge of the galaxy and back—she’s out of her mind. Just like him. She just has more energy. She could run circles around Peter on his best day, and she always did. That’s saying something, considering what Peter is capable of.

Tony squeezes Peter’s shoulder as they move back into his room. “I know you’re tired, bud, and going through it, and I don’t wanna put you in the position of telling Morgan that you need her to go because you literally—couldn’t do it. I’ve seen you try before. You almost missed school that day.”

Peter snorts, walking over and sitting on the edge of his bed. 

“You sure you don’t wanna wait til tomorrow—” Tony starts, but then Peter is looking up at him. The kid had puppy dog eyes before, but now, somehow, it’s way, way worse. Tony doesn’t wanna say no to him, he wants to buy him whatever the hell he wants, wants to hug him and never let go. He wants—needs—to fix this whole situation. Every bit of it.

“No, I—I really wanna see her,” Peter says. “It feels like—right now is good. I’ve got him—I’ve got him in check, right now, and I don’t know if I’m—gonna be as good, tomorrow.” He shifts his lips to the side, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Yeah, I’m tired, but I—I got to see Ned and MJ, and I got to see Happy for a minute, and Pepper, and I—I wanna see Morgan too. Just in case, you know.” He sucks in a breath, looks away from Tony, like he thinks he’s doing too much explaining.

Tony’s heart clenches and he winces, nodding. “Gotcha, okay, one little lunatic coming right up,” he says, eager to get that look off Peter’s face. “And ice cream. How’s that sound?”

That helps with the look. “Oh, yeah,” Peter says. “I haven’t had ice cream in—well, a long time.”

“I’ve got your favorite, too,” Tony says, pulling his phone out and quickly composing the text to Pepper. “Which is also Mo’s favorite. One of her favorites.”

Peter looks even brighter at that and he lays back, actually carrying an aura of peacefulness for a short moment, and Tony types fast, trying to remember everything he wants to say.

_Can you bring MoMo up here, Peter wants to see her! And the mint chocolate chip please. Apologize in advance for the sugared up monster she’ll become. Pls reiterate the eye thing so she’s prepared, you know how she says whatever she thinks. I doubt she’ll be mean to him but I don’t wanna take any chances. _

“Alright, I bet Pepper’s gonna jump on it within a second or two here,” Tony says, putting his phone back in his pocket and walking over to sit next to the kid. He glances down at all the Legos, and knows Ned probably spent all the money he has on all that shit. Tony’s gotta pay him back, in spades. He’s got enough to spare to cover it all.

He lays down too, stretching his arms up over his head. Peter is staring off at the ceiling, and Tony can’t help but worry about his eye socket. He’s gotta try to coax him into changing the dressing first thing in the morning, as much as he’ll probably balk against it when the time comes. It’s been too long since they did it to begin with, and Helen has been hinting that something needs to be done. But for now he doesn’t mention it. 

“Today went—pretty well, overall, right?” Tony asks. 

“After my whole freakout, yeah,” Peter says, with a sigh.

“We’re gonna work through those, bud,” Tony says. “They’re not gonna be forever.”

Peter clicks his tongue, and reaches up, touching the bandage again. Every time, it’s like he forgets it’s there, and Tony just wants to fix it. He doesn’t know how.

“I told MJ I like her,” Peter says, after a beat of silence. “Well. Ned told her while I was gone, and she—she brought it up. She actually—she actually likes me too. Still. Even like this.”

Tony scoffs. “Jesus, kid, I could have told you that. I can see the way she looks at you. And she texted me about every five seconds once you told her you were here.”

Peter smiles a little bit. “I just, uh. I don’t know. I wasn’t sure before and now I was like, positive she would _not_ wanna be around me—at all—”

“Pete,” Tony says, looking at him incredulously, hardy able to form words around the thoughts in his head. This is just so _asinine_ to him, knowing Peter, who he is, how kind and positive and endearing he is, the full extent of how much he cares about people. It’s insane. It’s insane. Everyone fucking adores him and the kid has no idea.

“What?” Peter asks, turning to look at him better. 

No wonder. He was like this before, yeah. But now—someone he thought he could trust tortured him for an entire month. Someone he thought he could trust betrayed him, inflicted pain on him. Someone he thought he could trust carved out his goddamn eye. 

“You don’t just abandon people you love because they’re going through something,” Tony says. 

Peter laughs, and looks away from him again. “She doesn’t _love—_”

Tony snorts. “Yeah, you keep on thinking that. I know the look of love, and she’s got it. I’ve seen it plenty. Usually on my own face when I’m standing behind Pepper while she brushes her teeth.”

“Oh my God, Tony,” Peter laughs.

Then Tony hears it. Like a tiny dinosaur, slamming down onto the ground with every excited step. Pepper didn’t even text him back, and it’s barely been five minutes since he messaged her—and yet that is absolutely Morgan, barreling towards Peter’s room. 

“Oh, here we go,” Tony says, sitting back up. He briefly looks at Peter to make sure he doesn’t see any regret on his face. But Peter quickly sits up too, anticipation in his expression instead of fear. He reaches up and touches the bandage again, reminding Tony to contact Helen before it gets too late. He knows she’s still here.

“Honey, honey,” Pepper’s voice says, carrying down the hall. “Calm down. You need to chill out.”

“How!” Morgan says, not even a question, and Peter laughs, dipping his head down. 

“Tony,” Peter says, fast, palming the back of his neck. “Am I—”

But before Peter can finish his sentence, Morgan comes bounding into the room. She’s holding the quart of ice cream and she skids to a halt as soon as she steps over the threshold, her face full of wonder and shock. Tony panics, for a couple seconds, because she isn’t looking at him at all—her eyes are honed in on Peter.

“Uh, Morgan,” Tony starts.

But then she drops the ice cream on the floor and rushes over, leaping up into Peter’s arms. 

Peter makes a little noise of surprise but he catches her easily, and she cuddles up against his chest, burying her face in the crook of his neck. He holds her tight, cradling the back of her head, and Tony can hear her crying, just a little bit, in the way where she’s trying not to, where she’s trying to hold back. 

“Hey, girly girl,” Peter says, closing his eye and rocking her back and forth a little bit. “Sorry it took me so long to see you.”

“I missed you, I missed you,” Morgan says, muffled, and she holds onto him tighter. He readjusts his arms around her, squeezing her shoulder and rubbing her back.

“I missed you too, crazy pants,” Peter says. 

Tony stares, like a moron, like they’ve got him entranced, and if he says this is the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen, he thinks Pepper would forgive him. His kids, together again. Part of him had worried, back when they set the world right, that Morgan and Peter wouldn’t get along. But he looks at them now, and all the love between them, and realizes how stupid he was. It’s impossible not to adore them both, and to see them together, after all this hell Peter’s been through—Tony is two seconds from stroking out.

He hears a noise, and sees Pepper picking up the ice cream, walking over to Peter’s dresser and arranging the bowls. Tony can see the smile on her face, and sees she’s got something else that kind of looks like one of Morgan’s Spider-Man folders.

Morgan pulls back and stares at Peter—really, really looks at him. And Tony panics again.

“Am I scary?” Peter asks, voice wavering a little bit.

Tony gasps, can’t help it, and he shares a quick look with Pepper, hoping to God she warned Morgan about the bandage.

“No,” Morgan says, regarding Peter closely. “You could never be scary.” She reaches up, doesn’t quite touch it, though Peter goes still, like he thinks she might. “You’re a pirate now,” she says, matter of fact. 

Peter snorts, glancing at Tony, and Tony wilts in relief. 

“You don’t have your eye anymore, Daddy doesn’t have his arm—”

“I’ve got an arm,” Tony says, tapping the iron arm with two fingers. “Not the original arm, but I’ve _got_ an arm.” Morgan snorts at him, and Tony keeps on. “And Pete—I mean, he’s got options, we can figure things out here. Look at Uncle Thor.” He’s rambling again, saying dumb stuff, because for once in his damn life, Tony Stark doesn’t know what to say. 

“Yeah,” Peter says, even though they haven’t talked about anything like that yet.

“You’re not scary,” Morgan says, launching herself into another hug. 

“You wanna give your brother what you brought him?” Pepper says, turning around with the bowls of ice cream. She shoves one into Tony’s hands, giving him that smile that’s reserved just for him. Tony’s heart dips and splinters whenever he hears Peter referred to in that way, and more so when nobody reacts to it, because it’s normal, because it’s right, because it’s exactly what he is. 

“What, you brought me something?” Peter asks, pressing two quick kisses to Morgan’s cheek.

“Oh, I think I might know,” Tony says, watching her grin, climbing out of Peter’s lap and making for the folder. “We’ve got a little Rembrandt, I think. Maybe I’m biased. I’m definitely biased.”

Morgan produces the little book she’s been making, with too many staples because she kept adding to it with every passing day. She’s drawn double the amount since Peter’s been back, three or four each day, and she trots back over with it in her hands, shoving herself between Tony and Peter.

“These are of me and you,” Morgan says, leaning into Pete and resting the slap shot bunch of papers on his leg, flipping through the pages. “Mostly. Some are of daddy and mommy and us, some are of Uncle Rhodey and us, Uncle Happy and us. Daddy told me to do a silly one where you’re holding Uncle Steve over your head so I did that.”

“Oh my God,” Peter laughs, reaching up and wiping at his eye.

“These last couple are just you as Spider-Man. Because I know you love being Spider-Man, Petey. And you’re always gonna be, so, you don’t have to worry!”

Tony peers over her head and looks as she flips, and Peter is startled into silence. They’re pretty good, for a six year old—she has good attention to detail, and Tony can see a lot of Pepper touches in there on the recent ones. Peter looks at each one, and Morgan watches him, smiling, proud of her work. The last two are of Spider-Man swinging in front of a pink and purple sunset—one he’s alone, and in the other he’s carrying Morgan herself in one arm.

“Mo, these are—this is—” Peter hiccups, and he shakes his head, leaning down and pressing a kiss to her hair. “This is amazing. I love it so much, I love you, _thank you._”

Tony rubs at his own eyes, and takes a bite of his ice cream to distract himself. 

“I love you too,” Morgan says, grabbing at Peter’s hand. “Thank you—I’m so happy you’re home.”

~

They eat ice cream. They eat too much ice cream, and Morgan just about chats Peter’s ear off about every little thing that pops into her head. May comes back, joins the ice cream party, and quickly becomes just as enamored as Tony is with Morgan and Peter together. The kid seems distracted enough that he’s not seeing things, or at least not being tortured by them if he does see them, and when Rhodey texts that he’s at the door, Tony feels like he’s safe enough to go and see what’s going on.

It isn’t just Rhodey. It’s him, Sam, Bucky and Steve. All three of them are wearing black, like they’re trying to be stealth, when there’s no fucking way the general population wouldn’t recognize them on the street

“Hey,” Tony says, closing the door behind him. “We alright?”

“How’s he doing?” Sam asks. “Since earlier?”

“Better,” Tony says, eyes flicking back and forth between them. “Uh, MoMo is in there right now being her normal self, which seems to be helping. What’s going on? Steve, you got a weird look on your face, and it’s not just your face.”

Steve cracks his jaw, and he exchanges a glance with Bucky.

Tony’s chest goes a little tight. “What, what?” he asks, looking at Rhodey then, like he’ll translate, as he usually does with Tony and the rest of the world.

“We found something...stupid,” Steve says, with a sigh. “Frustrating. And it’s—it doesn’t help us at all. It’s just—it’s just, uh, it’s just—”

“It’s bullshit,” Bucky says, finishing Steve’s thought.

“Yeah,” Steve says. “That.”

Tony’s skin feels a little clammy and he doesn’t even know if he wants to hear this at all, but if it’s information on where Peter was, or what the fuck Beck is up to, then he’s gotta make himself listen. No matter how bullshit. 

“Continue,” he says, trying not to sound irritated.

“It was just—it was uh, eleven days ago, Beck appeared on security cameras,” Steve says. 

Tony’s heart rate skyrockets. “That’s good, that could show us where the hell he was coming from,” he says, kinda manic. “Where, where was it?”

Steve shakes his head, and whatever the fuck is going on is _killing_ Tony. “It was in—seventeen different places. At the same time.”

Tony goes cold.

“Two in London,” Bucky says. “Fury informed us. He wasn’t too thrilled.”

“Yeah, Natasha also reported more in California,” Sam says, tonguing the corner of his mouth. “That’s what I was dealing with earlier, when you called me. We all thought we had something, it’s almost as if he meant for us to find them all at once. And he just—he disappears, even when we follow him in CCTV and street cams. Dumb asshole.”

“Just more of his bullshit,” Rhodey says, defeat in his voice. 

Tony feels more than defeated. His anger surges through his veins, worse than it has so far, because he can picture that prick setting this up, laughing about it, leaving Peter behind to languish. 

“We’re still trying to figure out if one of them was real or if all of them were...illusions,” Steve says, shifting from foot to foot. 

“Thank God he didn’t hang on to the glasses,” Rhodey says. “Or he would have had a lot more drones at his disposal. He only has his own.”

Tony grits his teeth, looking down at the ground. He feels like he’ll start yelling if he talks, so he keeps his mouth shut.

“Rhodey, are you staying?” Bucky asks, moving anxiously. “Is Bruce still here? Because I don’t like the idea of the kid unguarded with this guy still out there. No offense, Tony—”

“Don’t worry, Barnes,” Tony says. “I’ve got him. And there are a bunch of people on duty. Bruce isn’t here right now, but he’ll be back.” Tony needs to message him too. And Helen. And Murdock. And Thor. 

He doesn’t say that he believes he’d hulk out himself if Beck even breathed in Peter’s direction at this point. That he’d absolutely, one hundred percent Murder A Guy if Beck was in front of him. He’d be in such a pit of black rage that he doesn’t even know if he’d remember doing it.

He realizes that his brain is mush and he _did_ want someone else to stay, but his cheeks burn vibrant red and he doesn’t know if he can say it now.

“I’m staying for the time being, and so is Sam, yeah?” Rhodey asks. He knows Tony needs him as much as Peter might.

“Yeah,” Sam says. “So I can be on standby, to talk to him. He needs to talk, but pushing him into it will only be worse.”

“We’ll stay the night,” Steve says. “Check in with Natasha and Clint tomorrow, see where they are, if they’ve found anything. Maybe we can come back in shifts.”

“I was talking to Rhodey earlier,” Tony croaks. “And I just—the condition Peter was in—I know Beck had to have been keeping him close to here. There’s no way he traveled far like that, in that much—pain. So I really don’t wanna count places out, but I just—I feel like we should be keeping it close.” He’s tearing up again, thinking of Peter, and he reminds himself that the kid is here, he’s safe, he’s just behind him in his room.

“We will, Tony,” Steve says, in that particular way that makes it hard not to believe him. “I promise. We’re gonna find this guy.”

Tony nods, swallowing hard. “Yeah,” he says, quick. “Listen, uh, this is for you guys and—everyone else, that’s helping out—I, uh, I know you’ve all got your own shit to do and it’s barely a year into our well-earned new lives so I’m just. I’m just...thankful. For your help.” He allows himself to glance around at them, trying his damndest not to burst into tears. “It means a lot.”

“We love the kid,” Bucky says, before anyone else can speak up. “He’s awesome. Just—yeah.” He looks at Sam, and Tony sees Sam crack a smile. 

“Plus, he’s part of the team,” Steve says. 

“Part of the family,” Rhodey says, knocking Tony in the arm.

That’s true, if anything ever was.

“Thanks, guys, really,” Tony says, clearing his throat. “Uh, your rooms are still all made up. Sam, I’ll—buzz you if—hopefully _when_—Peter wants to talk.”

~

Morgan tries to hold onto her Peter time for as long as she can, but eventually she starts getting tired and Tony knows it’s just about long enough for Peter anyway. Tony goes to wash the dishes with Pepper, to tell her and Morgan goodnight, and then he heads back to Peter’s room, feeling a strange sense of optimism and melancholy at the same time. He messages Helen, fixes the dressing-changing appointment for the morning, and hopes he can get Peter to agree to it. 

“Mind if I take a quick shower?” May asks Tony, already gathering her stuff like his answer isn’t gonna change her decision either way.

“Yeah, I gotta get one after you,” Tony says. 

She leans in, sniffing of him, and she nods, narrowing her eyes.

“Wow, thanks,” Tony says, grinning at her. She grins back, and quickly disappears into Peter’s bathroom suite.

Tony turns around. Peter is already in pajamas and he yawns big, both his legs tucked up under him as he sits in the middle of the bed. Tony rubs the back of his own neck, hoping his eye will stop twitching. “Uh,” he says. “As soon as you don’t want us in here anymore, bud, let me know. Or I could bring in another easy chair, and we could be—overbearing, but from a couple steps away.”

Peter stares at him. “Um, I still want—I still want you here,” he says. “If that’s—if that’s okay.”

“It’s perfectly okay,” Tony says, fast. “Completely.”

“I mean, I could fit at least three other people into this bed,” Peter says. “Maybe Thor, Carol and Bruce could come stay, too.” There’s a small smile on his face and Tony laughs, because it’s funny and also because he wants to encourage the kid to joke if he wants to. He would always joke, even in the most dire of situations, and hearing him try is—a step in the right direction.

Peter clears his throat. “I hardly got any sleep there,” he says. 

Tony feels the air change. 

_There._

There, with Beck.

“He kept me on this really uncomfortable like, medical gurney most of the time,” Peter says. “Sometimes I’d get this little cot, but only when he was feeling _generous_. That’s the word he used.” Peter sniffles a little bit but he’s not crying, not yet. Tony walks over and sits on the edge of the bed, slowly, trying not to spook him. “He, uh, got in these really weird moods where he’d become obsessed with just talking to me and trying to act like we were just friends hanging out, but then it’d be like he remembered he was the person literally holding me captive and he’d shove me into another illusion.”

“Did he...do that a lot?” Tony asks.

“Yeah,” Peter says, cracking his jaw. “Whenever he’d leave, I’d be in an illusion. And most of the time he’d drug me up so it’d be—more difficult for me. I don’t know what the hell kind of handcuffs he had, because usually I can just break out of anything. Vibranium isn’t—distributed, is it?”

Tony shakes his head. “Not really, but there have been—issues, since T’Challa opened Wakanda up to the world, especially with all the Thanos bullshit. So black market isn’t—isn’t really off the table. It could have been.” His chest hurts. His heart clenches.

Peter shakes his head. “Most days consisted of—at least five or six illusions, whatever—torture he came up with, and a lot of him just rambling on and on and on to me. About nothing. And when I’d fall asleep, he’d scream me awake. Shake me or hurt me every time I drifted off.”

Tony reaches up, pinching the bridge of his nose. He’s shaking. 

“I didn’t really realize how much time was passing,” Peter says. He sucks in a wavering breath, and he scoots off the bed, walking over to the dresser where they’ve got a stash of water bottles. “I’m sorry,” he says, not looking over at Tony.

“No, don’t be,” Tony says, voice rough. “I’m sorry. I wanna know, it’s just—” He’s about to say _it’s hard_, but that’s stupid as hell, and insulting to say out loud. Of course it’s hard. Peter knows that, he knows it up close and personal. He’s the one it happened to.

Tony tries to recover. “But you had to go through it, and that’s worse. I want to hear everything you’re—willing to share, Pete. It just makes me wanna murder a guy, that’s all. But I already wanna murder a guy, the details just make me wanna murder him harder. That’s just. It is what it is.”

Tony sees the line of Peter’s shoulders shake, and he walks over to stand alongside him. 

“I just can’t shake it,” Peter whispers, holding tight to his water bottle. “But I want to.”

“You _will,_” Tony says, trying to sound convincing. 

Peter looks at him, like he wants to say something else, something in particular, and Tony reaches around, gripping his shoulder. Then Peter heaves a sigh, looking down at their feet, and he leans into Tony’s space. 

“Do you feel safe here?” Tony asks. “With how things have been...going along? Is there anything else we can do?”

“No, I do, I—I feel safe,” Peter says, nodding, putting the water bottle down. “But I want—I’m _Spider-Man_,” he says, so desperately, his remaining eye pleading with Tony when he looks up. “I should have gotten away from him, I did—I had so many opportunities, I could have—I could have done something, but I just let him keep—I just let him _keep me—_”

“You didn’t let him do shit,” Tony says. “I know you didn’t. I know you fought every step of the way because that’s just who you are. And like Morgan said—wisdom from a six year old—you will _always_ be Spider-Man. No matter what.”

There’s a beat of silence.

“My eye,” Peter says, lower lip trembling.

Tony tries to quickly rush over the bump in the road that is his own heart skipping beats, because the kid looking like that is absolutely fucking kryptonite to him. “You know Fury,” Tony says. “He can do anything, and he’s only got one eye. And if you want another eye, I will get you another eye. I’ll make you one, I’ll steal you one, whatever you want, Pete, I’ll do it.”

Peter gives him a watery smile. 

“I’m serious,” Tony says. “Whatever you want, I’ll figure it out. But even if you wanted to learn to live with it, the way it is now, you could. So many of us have had these—life-changing injuries, and we’re still going. I’m not exaggerating when I say you’re the best of us, and the strongest. You are, I knew it from moment one. This isn’t gonna stop you.”

Peter nods. “I wanna believe you,” he says. “I really, really do. Just, right now, it’s—I’m not right. My head isn’t right. He did that.”

“I know it’s hard,” Tony says. “I do. We gotta get rid of him first, and then we’ll work on everything else.” Tony means that literally and figuratively. Get rid of the Beck in Peter’s head. And the actual asshole that’s still out there.

“I do think I want...I want the world to know that I’m—that Spider-Man is back,” Peter says, turning a bit and leaning his hip on the dresser. “It’s been—well, I think—” He closes his eye, cracking his jaw again, or trying to. It seems like he’s struggling.

“It’s okay,” Tony says, softly. 

Peter glances away, and then back at him again. “I just—when I was there, I was thinking about all the people that get kidnapped, all the people—kids—that get lost, kidnapped, never seen again and I just—I thought about you guys wondering, about me, everyone wondering—about Spider-Man and I just—I want people to know that I’m back. And then later, later, when I’m, uh, maybe, a little better, more myself, I’d like to—start a coalition with you and May to—help search for missing people. With our resources, it—I feel like we could...make a difference.”

Tony stares at him. The idea that he’s thinking like this, right now—May needs to get out of the shower and come back out here to witness the pure strength and unadulterated kindness of her child. He amazes Tony, every single fucking second, and the world isn’t kind enough to contain him. “Yes, absolutely, a million percent we can do that,” Tony says, his voice cracking. 

“Really?” Peter asks, and he reaches up, touches the bandage again. 

“Yes, definitely, and it’s an incredible idea that, frankly, I should have already been working on,” Tony says. “When you’re ready, and on your feet, we’ll start designing it. It’ll be your project. I’ll do a press conference for Spider-Man in the next couple days.”

“Okay,” Peter says, blowing out a big breath, like he’d been holding it in. 

Tony rubs his own chest, trying to simmer down the swell of emotion. “You can help me come up with what you want said, and I’ll practice it beforehand, so I won’t be so damn wooden up there.”

Peter drops.

Tony almost feels like he imagines it, because they’re moving forward and figuring things out and doing better, but he doesn’t imagine it—Peter _drops._ Tony catches him around the waist before he can fall completely to the ground, but the kid isn’t grabbing at him or freaking out or wobbling around—he’s out cold, limp, a ragdoll in Tony’s arms. 

“Oh fuck,” Tony says, quickly lowering him to the ground, holding the back of Peter’s neck so his head doesn’t loll around. He adjusts him a little so he’s lying in the crook of Tony’s arm, and Tony quickly presses two trembling fingers to Peter’s pulse point. His heart is still beating.

“Peter,” Tony says, holding him close, taking his face in his good hand and turning it towards him. He’s completely slack, arms lying limp at his sides, not moving at all. Tony’s heart is beating wildly—what happened? Nothing. Nothing happened. He just dropped, he just _dropped._ Is this some kind of fucking—time bomb magic trick that Beck planted? 

Tony can’t breathe. He can’t think.

His kid his _kid, he’s not moving, he’s not moving—_

“Pete,” Tony says again, running his thumb back and forth over Peter’s cheek. “Wake up. Wake up. Look at me.”

Nothing. Nothing. Peter doesn’t move. The sound of the shower is driving Tony absolutely insane. 

“May!” he screams. “May, May, get out here! Peter’s in trouble!”

He doesn’t know if she can hear him. He can barely hear himself over the sound of his own heart slamming at high speed. 

Peter’s not moving. He’s not moving.

“Friday, call—call Helen, tell her to get up to Peter’s room, please,” Tony says. 

He hoists Peter up a little bit more, terrified, and the kid’s head rolls onto Tony’s chest. “Jesus Christ, Peter,” Tony whispers, tears clouding his vision again. He’s at a fucking loss, clutching at him, brushing his hair back from his forehead. He was fine, just a moment before. He was fine. He was _fine_ and now—and now he’s not moving. Eye closed, not speaking. It doesn’t feel like sleep. Despite the serene look on his face, there’s nothing peaceful about it. 

Beck did this. Whatever the hell this is, Beck did it.

And Peter’s still not moving. Tony swallows a sob, trying to shake him again. 

“Pete, please. _Please._ Wake up, kid. Wake up.”


	4. a long list

“What’s going—what happened?” May says, sucking in a horrified breath when she steps back out into the bedroom. She’s wearing one of the white robes Tony had put in Peter’s bathroom closet, a towel around her hair, and she immediately drops down next to Peter’s prone form once she registers the scene in front of her.

It’s been five minutes.

“I called—I called Helen,” Tony stammers, patting Peter’s cheek again, but to no avail.

“Baby, honey—what happened?” May says, focus switching back and forth between Peter and Tony himself.

Tony holds him protectively, terrified of what’s gonna happen next. He’s got no damn idea, he doesn’t know, Peter isn’t _moving_. “I called Helen,” he says again, like a broken record. “Uh, he just—he just dropped. We were talking, it was—nothing happened, we were just talking, and he just dropped. I don’t—I don’t know—”

“Peter,” May says, leaning over him, bracing one hand on Tony’s knee. She shakes Peter’s face, but he doesn’t respond at all.

Tony feels like he’s gonna have a heart attack.

“Tony?” Helen’s voice asks, from the doorway. “What’s—oh God.”

“He said he just dropped,” May says, leaping to her feet. “I didn’t see it—”

Helen rushes over and takes Peter’s pulse, her hand a lot steadier against his neck than Tony’s was. 

“I did—I did that,” Tony says, squeezing Peter’s shoulder. “His heart is beating, he’s—he’s breathing, but he just passed out. He just dropped, I—I don’t know why—we were just talking.”

“Can you carry him?” Helen asks. “I wanna do some tests.”

“Yes,” Tony says, his heart picking up the pace again. He readjusts Peter in his arms, rising to his feet, watching as May’s hands hover around Peter’s head. She knows just as much as Pepper does about the trouble he’s had on his feet, and he can feel their combined doubt about his ability to protect their kid like a physical thing clinging to them both.

He’d die before dropping him, that’s for sure. The iron arm helps, and makes picking Peter up a lot easier than it used to be.

They clamor up to the med bay, and May stays close to Peter’s head as they go, talking to him, trying to snap him out of this. It has to be some bullshit Beck pulled, has to be, and Tony’s heart drops at the possibility of other things lying under the surface. He’s a master of trickery, and Tony starts wondering about other shit too—did he let Peter go on purpose, knowing the tricks he left behind would pop up to bite them in the ass? 

They make it to the med bay and Tony lays his precious cargo down as gently as he can, May supporting Peter’s head and running her hands through his hair. Every move she makes towards Peter is full of love and tenderness, and with a twist in his heart, Tony is reminded of how his own mother used to treat him, and how much he wishes she was still here.

“Did you say anything that you normally don’t say?” Helen asks, taking Peter’s blood pressure. “A particular word, maybe?”

Tony winces, trying to think. “Uh. Jesus, I’m not sure.”

“I have a feeling, knowing Beck’s profile, that this could be a similar situation to what we saw with Barnes, with the trigger words,” Helen says, shining a light into Peter’s eye. 

“I think the only word I might have said that I don’t normally say…” Tony tries to think. They were talking about the press conference that he still needs to plan. “Uh. Maybe the word ‘wooden’.” Talking about his own general stiffness in the public eye, nowadays. He hates the way they look at him.

He says the word and all three of them look at Peter, but nothing happens. Helen does a few more things, and Tony zones out staring at Peter's lax face, once again feeling the full weight of his failure. When will he start being useful? Peter needs him and he keeps failing. He can’t do the right thing.

“I could give him a shot of adrenaline but I don’t think it’s the right thing to do,” Helen says. She stands there with her hands on her hips in front of Tony, and she glances down at Peter. “There’s nothing _wrong_ with him, nothing out of the ordinary to have caused this—I think it’s a trigger word. Conditioning. Pavlov’s dog type thing.” She clears her throat, and looks over at May now, too. “I’m sure Beck—knocked him out when he said the word, something along those lines. Used hypnosis to back it up, or his illusions. Did it enough times to set it in and make it click.”

Tony winces, and his brain provides images he doesn’t want. 

“How do we wake him up?” May asks. She takes the towel off from around her hair and tosses it to the ground. 

“For now, I just say we should wait,” Helen says. “I don’t necessarily know whether Beck had a word or a phrase to bring him back—”

“You think he’ll come back on his own?” May asks, clutching at Peter’s hand.

“I do,” Helen says, and Tony doesn’t know how she says it with such confidence. “And you two can help coax him back, too. Just talk to him. I’m gonna change the dressing while he’s out, at least he doesn’t have to go through that again.”

Tony nods, feels a little like he’s betraying Peter by letting her do it without asking him, but both he and May scoot to Peter’s right side so she can work. Tony has a hard time looking at the empty socket, and when he starts imagining how brutal the pain was, he feels like throwing up. This situation is so in his face—Peter was kidnapped, tortured, had his eye carved out—but when Tony starts thinking about the details—really, truly letting them wash over him, he starts to slip into his own, silent, screaming panic. He wants to keep Peter from pain, keep him safe and loved and happy, and yet—it all happened. He can’t prevent it. It all happened already. It happened, and there’s nothing he can do about it.

“My sweet boy,” May says, kissing Peter’s hand once Helen bandages up the left side of his face up again. “Jesus.”

Tony thinks about the hell Peter had to go through on a daily basis, while Beck had him. That asshole screaming him awake. Filling his head with lies. Illusion after illusion. Ungodly amounts of pain and torture, things that make Tony dizzy to even imagine. Peter thrives on love and care from his family, and for a whole month, he got the exact opposite of that. 

Which gives Tony an idea.

“He’s the best, yeah?” Tony says, brushing Peter’s hair back from his forehead, tracking his thumb back and forth. “A hero.”

May looks at Tony sideways for a second before she seems to get on the same page. “So many people love him,” she says. “God, it’s hard to even—measure the impact Spider-Man has had.”

“You’re right,” Tony says. “And that impact wouldn’t be nearly as big if Spider-Man wasn’t Peter Parker.”

May smiles softly, reveling in the full extent of her love for him.

“I always knew he was special,” she says, kissing Peter’s hand again, holding it against her cheek. “I love you so much, Peter. We all love you so much.”

“Everyone loves you, Pete,” Tony says. “Morgan, Pepper, Rhodey, Happy—you’ve even got the Winter Soldier worried about you, kid. Let alone Captain America and the rest—” 

“And…” May says, looking at Tony with knowing eyes.

“Oh,” Tony says. He so rarely says those three little words, but for the main people in his life—Pepper, Morgan, Peter, Happy, Rhodey, and now May—sometimes feels like it goes without saying. Because the feeling of it is so intense at times that it knocks him off his feet, dwindles him down to a shade of himself, struggling to breathe under the compress of his own love. But Jesus, does he feel it. Especially for this kid. Especially now. 

He laughs a little bit, feeling stupid, and he leans in, pressing a kiss to Peter’s forehead. “You know I love you, webs. I love you to death and beyond that.”

“We love you _so_ much, baby,” May says. “God, we love you.”

“We love you,” Tony says, voice breaking. It’s been about twenty minutes since that moment in Peter’s room when he fell to the ground, and Tony needs to see him move again like he needs air in his lungs. 

So when Peter’s brows knit together and he turns towards them, both Tony and May shudder to life, leaping to their feet and leaning over him. 

“Honey?” May asks, up against Tony’s shoulder. “Baby, are you waking up?”

“Pete, you’re here,” Tony says, one hand braced on Peter’s arm. “You’re with us, you’re safe—”

“I’m—I’m—I’m sorry—” Peter stutters, as his eye flutters open. 

Every time Peter says that, Tony feels like he loses a year off his life. 

Peter’s whole body shudders, as he takes in his surroundings, and he tries to push himself up into a sitting position. May rushes around to his other side while Tony helps him on his right, and goosebumps rise up on Peter’s arms. 

“I forgot, I forgot,” Peter says, covering his face with his hands. 

“Forgot what, Peter?” Helen asks, softly, from behind them. 

The kid seems manic, and Tony rubs his arm, just happy he’s awake. “He’d—I don’t know the words, I think it’s because of the way he did it, so I wouldn’t remember them or wouldn’t be prepared when he was gonna do it—but they were like—triggers, to get me to do something or react in a certain way—” He rubs at his good eye, breathing hard. “I forgot, I forgot, I wasn’t even thinking—”

“It’s alright, baby, we know now,” May says, rubbing his shoulder, sitting on the bed beside him.

“And I’m pretty sure I know what word it was, bud,” Tony says. “So we know that too.”

“Do you know how many words there were?” Helen asks. 

Peter blows out a breath, chewing on his nail. “Two, or—two or three,” he says, voice shaking. “I know one of them was bad. Violent.” He shakes his head, swallowing hard. “I could hurt someone. I could hurt someone.”

“This is something we can break, Peter,” Helen says. “Something we can absolutely work through.”

“Definitely, Pete,” Tony says. “It’s alright. Don’t worry.” 

Peter’s got a wild look in his eye and he tries to take a few deep breaths. He looks off to the side, past where Helen is, and seems to be fixating on something. Tony wonders what he sees there.

“I’m okay,” Peter says, like he doesn’t believe it. 

“You’re okay,” May repeats, like she needs it to be true.

Peter looks up at the both of them, glances down at his hands. Tony feels a chill and realizes what this must feel like—like the other night, when he hurt himself. Like the memory. This is like something of Beck still holding onto him, still in control, still making decisions for him when he should be free. He’s here, he’s safe. But he’s not. Not when things like this can happen.

“Can I go back to my room?” Peter asks. 

“Of course,” Tony says, without consulting with Helen. There really isn’t anything medical to do for this. It just—is. They’ve gotta rewire the kid’s brain and remove Beck’s influences. 

He’s quiet, on the walk back. Nervous, jumpy, suspicious of things they can’t see. And once they get behind closed doors, it’s like a dam breaks.

“I know that you guys are—are wondering about all of it,” Peter says, turning around in the middle of the room, taking a few steps away from them. “Everything that happened. And May, I told Tony some, while you were—in the shower. Sometimes it feels impossible to talk about and other times I wanna tell you everything but either way I don’t know how to do it because I know—I know it hurts you, to hear about it—”

“Pete, I know I gave you that impression as much as I tried to recover it,” Tony says, shaking his head. “I promise, I promise you, no matter how much it hurts, May and I are here to listen to whatever you need to say.”

“Oh, absolutely, sweetheart,” May says. “Anything.”

“I know you were wondering about the boxers,” Peter says, and he’s shaking a little bit, cold, nervous, upset, all of the above. “And I know you had Helen check.”

Tony feels frozen in fear, and May doesn’t say anything either. 

“He didn’t do that,” Peter says, starting to pace. “He did lots of shit, but he didn’t do that.”

Tony already knew, because Helen said so, but hearing it from Peter’s mouth is like a godsend. Thank God, thank _God._

“He threatened it a lot,” Peter says, chewing on his lower lip. He nods to himself, and a wave of nausea goes through Tony, enough to make him sway on his feet. It’s like the world goes watery grey.

“He…” May starts.

“He threatened it,” Peter says again, and he stops dead, wringing his hands in front of him. “In no uncertain terms, so I always expected it, tried to—prepare for it, you know, as much as I could, but half the time I think he forgot the shit he’d say from day to day. And that wasn’t really his—his racket. He liked to step back and admire his work, with me, not—not be involved in it. He didn’t like to be—off guard. But the threats were plenty detailed, so, yeah. I could imagine what it would be if he ever—changed his mind. The boxers were just—sometimes he didn’t let me get up for a long time and—” He shakes his head, scrubbing away his tears. 

Tony draws in a slow breath. Tries not to pass out. 

“I hate how much I know about him,” Peter says. “I hate how I can hear every word in the English language in his voice. I hate how he won’t—_go away_. And now there’s this, these—trigger words, and I can’t—I can’t even help with that, I can’t even stop it. I just—I never should have let him take me. I shouldn’t have let it happen to me.” He reaches up, rubbing his temples. “I shouldn’t have let it. He was right about me, how—fucking weak I am.”

“No,” May says, before Tony can. “No, that prick wasn’t right about anything, but especially not about that.”

“You survived _hell on earth_, Peter,” Tony says, still feeling dizzy and sick.

“I’m better than this, I know I am,” Peter says, shaking his head. “Or I should—I should be.” He looks at them and it's like something breaks inside him, and he almost looks—ashamed. Tony _hates_ it.

May approaches Peter, quickly tugging him into a hug. “He’s evil, baby,” she says. “Evil people—can have sway over others, they make you doubt yourself, but the very idea that you made it to the other side of your time with him—that’s incredible, alright?”

Tony walks over and joins in on the hug too, but he feels like he’s being stabbed, all over. He feels like his heart is seizing up, like he can’t goddamn breathe.

They calm Peter down, which takes a few minutes, and finally, they coax him back into bed. May gets into her pajamas, and curls around him like she’s expecting an attack at any moment. Tony stands beside the bed, staring at them.

“You alright?” May asks him, running her fingers through Peter’s hair. 

_He threatened it._

_The threats were plenty detailed, I could imagine—_

“Gimme a sec,” Tony says, vision blotchy with rage.

He doesn’t know if she says anything else because his brain is imploding in on itself, and he stalks out into the hallway with no real trajectory or thoughts in his head, save for Beck—Beck, with Peter completely at his mercy—Beck, torturing him, cutting him up, burning him, hurting him however he could think of hurting him, and he fucking—he fucking threatened to sexually assault him—to the point that Peter was—Peter was preparing for it—amongst all his other hurt and emotional wounds—and Beck—was—_threatening_—

Tony is in the living room when he punches the wall. He flies off the handle with his good hand—not the iron one—which makes the hole a little smaller than it would have been, but seeing it shocks him back to life. He stumbles away, clutching at his fist, and then he closes his eyes, shaking his head.

He tries to tell himself he can’t fix it. He can’t. It happened. There’s only the aftermath now. It happened.

But how the fuck did he let it happen?

How? _How?_

His child _his child—_

“Hey,” Bucky’s voice says. “Hey, Tony.”

Tony quickly looks to the side, and sees Bucky standing there. They’ve had their fair share of—whatever the hell it is they’ve been through—but Tony has built up trust with him that he didn’t really think himself capable of. A few long, emotional conversations can do that to a guy. He never actually thought he’d get to the point where seeing him in pajamas is a normal thing, but here they are.

“Sorry,” Tony says. “Usually I like to keep my emotional outbursts private.”

Bucky looks at him sideways, but approaches slowly. “What’d the wall do?”

Tony scoffs, shaking his head. “Uh, existed in my path, I guess,” he says. 

“Peter have a setback?” Bucky asks, tentatively. “I hope not.”

“Sort of,” Tony says, glancing down at the bruising already forming on his knuckles. “Uh, Beck left him with trigger words. Which we just found out when I actually said one of them and made him pass out.” He glances at Bucky’s face. “Guess you can—get what that’s like.”

“Yeah,” Bucky says, crossing his arms over his chest.

“And then he was just—amongst everything else, Beck was threatening to—Pete says he never actually did it, but he had the nerve to threaten to—to threaten—assault him in the—in the worst kind of way—”

Tony feels dizzy again, and Bucky comes over, touching Tony’s arm. 

“Hey, I get it,” Bucky says. “I know what you mean.”

“He tortured the shit out of him—Peter can’t tell me all the details and I can’t blame him but I know that prick did everything under the fucking sun to my kid and he still—had the fucking nerve to threaten _that_, among everything else, it just—” He shakes his head, leaning into Bucky’s space, and there are shimmering pieces eating into his vision. “That’s my goddamn kid, Barnes, that’s—when I really really think about it, I just—I _just_—I couldn’t do anything, I just—allowed it to happen—”

“Tony, this isn’t you, okay?” Bucky says, trying to twist around and look at him. “It’s not. Peter is a hero too, as much as he’s your kid. Not saying he brought this on himself, but I’m saying you can’t blame _yourself_. Whether Beck’s some moron from your past or what. It’s on _him_. Entirely.”

Tony shakes his head. “Either way. It fucking happened.”

“A lot of things have happened to us,” Bucky says. “He’s strong. He’s got support—the amount of love you have for him, Tony, shit—that alone, not even counting his aunt and his friend and his girl, and all of us? You on your _own_ have enough love for him to get him through this. With everybody? He’ll be fine, Tony. I promise.”

Tony looks at him. He doesn’t think Bucky would lie to him, after everything they’ve been through, and Tony feels like he’d be able to see right through him if he did. But it’s just clear, honest truth in his eyes. 

“And I can help with the trigger words,” Bucky says. “I’ve, uh. Yeah. You know. I’ll talk to Shuri, see if she can give me some more details. She’s a genius. We’ll figure it out.”

Tony blows out a breath, nodding at him. “Alright,” he says.

“Alright,” Bucky repeats, patting him on the back.

Tony tries to straighten up, tries to act like he didn’t just have a complete meltdown. “What were you doing out here, anyway?”

“Looking for something sweet to eat,” Bucky says, and it sounds strange to hear him say something like that. He looks away, like he knows. 

Tony clears his throat. “Uh, I might be able to find you some ice cream.”

“And I’ll help you with that wall.”

~

Two more days pass, and Peter still feels half stuck in a broken nightmare world. He feels the need to see people more overwhelmingly now, but the fear built up in his heart makes him keep it to the ones he’s already seen. MJ and Ned come over for hours at a time both days, and whenever Peter so much as touches MJ’s hand, he sees Beck boil over in a rage. Peter doesn’t know what to think of that. Is he angry Peter is going against what he told him? Angry he’s got the nerve to continue on with his feelings after being so beaten down? Peter tries to take it as a good thing. But then he realizes he’s referring to the goddamn hallucination in his head, and none of it is good. He’s messed up. He’s worse off than any of them really know because he can’t spare the details. The details dig their nails in. The details haunt.

If they hear all the details, they’ll let him go. They’ll leave him behind. How can they love and support someone this fucked up? May might be the only one to stick by him, and that’s out of obligation. Out of loyalty to Ben. But the rest of them—when they know exactly what’s going on in his head, exactly how broken he is—they’d never, ever wanna see him again. Too much work. Too much danger. A hypocrite. 

He keeps thinking about how it felt. When Tony said that word. He remembers the shit Beck would say, the horrible slow motion illusions he’d put them both in. The way he’d hit him until he blacked out, every time he said the word. Peter’s brain refuses to hear it now, or bring it back up, and he gets irritated as fuck at himself for not even being helpful in that regard. 

He remembers the violence—and he knows that’s ingrained in him too. What’s that word? Who is he gonna hurt when someone says it?

He and Tony work on the press conference speech while Beck paces in the corner, while parts of the walls fall away revealing what looks like the warehouse itself, except decomposing, full of spiders, mold, worse than it was in real life. Peter closes his eye tight and refuses to look, refuses to acknowledge it. He doesn’t want Tony to notice. 

But Tony notices everything. Tony stops working and moves over and wraps Peter in a hug. Tony holds onto him and whispers in his ear and Peter lets this moment rise up in his head, lets it take up empty space and plaster over darkness and pain—_this is real. This is how he feels._

He wonders how many times he’ll have to remind himself. Prove to himself that they do, in fact, love him. He thinks _how could they?_ And yet—they do. They do, anyway. Just because he can’t explain it doesn’t make it any less true. 

_Remember that. Remember that._

The day of the press conference comes, and Peter is stationed in the living room with just about everybody he’s allowing to get anywhere near him—May, MJ, Ned, Morgan, Pepper and Happy. He saw Rhodey for two seconds yesterday and he didn’t lose his shit, but Rhodey is priming the press before Tony goes live. Peter _wants_ to see him. He wants to see the others, too, but they’re staying away like he’s an animal they’re afraid of spooking. He wants to ask, he wants to say _please let them see me._ But Beck screams over him every time he even begins to put in a request with Tony, and that makes the fear build. What the fuck will he do if they do come in? What’ll he make him to do them?

“Hey,” MJ says, caressing the back of Peter’s neck. 

Peter looks over at her. He’s got Morgan in his lap, but she’s entirely focused on the drawing she’s doing, which—looks like it’s turning out to be MJ and Peter sitting in a tree-swing. He tries not to blush, and meets MJ’s gaze. She’s purposefully sitting on his right side so he can see her better. 

“You alright?” MJ asks.

Peter cracks his jaw. There’s a gaping hole in the wall behind the TV, and it looks like it’s deep under the ocean, the kind of darkness that Peter didn’t know was real. But it isn’t real. It _isn’t_ and he knows that. He _knows_ he knows he knows.

_Be normal, come on, be normal, she deserves someone normal._

“Yeah,” he says, catching sight of May watching him from across the room. “Just, uh, a little bit in my own head.”

“Well, get out of there,” MJ says, but without any heat, a small smile on her face. He smiles back, and shudders a little bit when she runs her fingers through the hair at the base of his neck. 

“He’s not gonna tell everybody about your eye, right?” Morgan asks softly, looking over her shoulder at him. “Because Daddy always says people aren’t supposed to know Spider-Man’s identity, but if both you and Spider-Man were both missing eyes, people might know.”

She says it so matter of fact that Peter laughs a little bit, tucking her hair behind her ear. 

“No, he’s not gonna say anything about my eye,” Peter says, wincing a little bit. It’s still hard to talk about it out loud. “Your dad knows what he’s doing.”

“Oh, is that true?” Tony’s voice asks, from behind them. Peter twists to see him—dressed in typical Tony Stark garb, but he’s not wearing his sunglasses yet, twirling them around in his right hand. He’s holding something else, close to his chest like it’s important, and his eyes quickly cut over to Peter before casting over the rest of them. “Mr. Leeds, where in the world are those h'dourves you’ve been teasing? Do not tell me you left them at home after all that talk.”

Ned turns around in a flash, like he’s been called on in class, and he leaps to his feet. “No, no, I have them, I was just—I was just waiting til it started.”

“Stop trying to _startle_ him, Tony,” Pepper says, giving him a look.

“What?” Tony asks, an expression of _who me?_ painted across his face as Ned rushes in the direction of the kitchen. “I’m not. He’s the one that’s been talking about his mom’s cheesy bacon pierogis for the past three days, I’m not the one, he’s the one.”

May scoffs, exchanging a look with Pepper, and gets up, following Ned out of the room. “Ned—I’ll help you, babe. If I know your mom, you have a lot.”

“That should also be your cue,” Tony says, pointing over at Happy. “C’mon, both of us are too lucky in the lady department, we need to make up for it whenever possible.”

Pepper snorts, watching as Happy stumbles up too. 

“Yeah, you’re—you’re right,” Happy says, disappearing around the corner. “Hey, May! Ned! I’ll help, I’ll—I’ll do most of it!”

MJ leans in, whispering in Peter’s ear. “I think I might like it here. You know, just a little bit.” He glances at her and she smiles big, showing off her teeth, and he can’t do anything else but match it.

“Uh, Pete,” Tony says, leaning on the edge of the couch, stuffing his glasses in his pocket. “Can I see you for two seconds, huh?”

Peter’s heart rattles a little bit, and he nods. “Of course,” he says. He leans down, planting a kiss to the top of Morgan’s head. “Lemme get up, MoMo.”

She huffs, jumping down, but then she quickly climbs up into MJ’s lap, instead. 

“Oh,” MJ says, eyes a little wide and looking at Peter. “Okay!”

“I like your t-shirts,” Morgan says, without looking at her, settling down and continuing to work on her drawing.

Peter grins, glances up at Tony and sees him smiling too, and Peter walks around the couch to meet him. Tony takes his arm gently and pulls him off a little closer to the elevator, and for a moment, Peter’s stomach drops, because he worries Tony is gonna tell him something bad.

“What’s that look?” Tony asks, touching Peter’s chin with his free hand. “It’s nothing bad, promise.”

“Sorry,” Peter mutters, meeting Tony’s gaze. 

“No apologies,” Tony says, raising his eyebrows.

Peter smiles a little bit. “I know, I know, I gotta—work on that.” 

“It’s okay,” Tony says. He holds out his hand—and shows Peter a black eye patch. “Now, I’ve got this for you and a bunch of other colors, for whatever you want, whatever—mood you’re in, or you don’t have to wear it at all and we can figure something else out.”

Peter gingerly takes the eyepatch from Tony, turning it over in his hand. “I’d need, uh—surgery, right? If we stop—stop packing the socket with dressing?” 

“Not necessarily,” Tony says. “It’s still just healing right now. We need to deal with what’s left of your eyelid, but that’s just aesthetics. And I don’t wanna fill the socket in case you want me to, y’know, make something for you. The patch is just a for now, when we—don’t need to bandage you up anymore.”

Peter nods, listening but half entranced by turning the patch over in his hand. He doesn’t know how to feel—it’s not some bullshit gift shop knockoff, he can tell by how it feels that it’s nice, high quality, something Tony made just for him. He tries to imagine what it’ll look like on him. 

“And hey,” Tony says. Peter looks up, and sees Tony pulls out another eye patch from his pocket—this one is red, with gold trimmings. “Whenever you’re feeling awkward about wearing yours, I’ll wear this one. It’s a little ostentatious because that’s who I am—I kept you on the down low for now but we’ve got a lot of options, webs. We can even match if you wanna go all out.”

Peter feels like something is swelling in his chest, and he glances up to look Tony in the eye. “You’d—you’d do that? For real? For—for me?” His voice comes out in an awed whisper.

Tony scoffs. “Every single time, kid. Whenever you’re feeling any type of way about having to wear yours.”

It’s the kind of overwhelming feeling he’s been getting a lot lately, except this is good, this is that kind of rush of love that obliterates the Beck looming around the room, the hallucinations that try to imply he’s anywhere but here. The fact that Tony would—Peter states at the eye patch, and can’t wait a second longer, shoving himself forward into a hug.

Tony laughs, gripping the back of Peter’s neck. “You like it?”

No way to properly express how much. “Yeah,” Peter says. “I like yours.”

“Okay, matching it is,” Tony says. “I’ve got all kinds of designs, you don’t even know. Want a dinosaur? You may absolutely have a dinosaur.”

Peter snorts. “Thank you,” he says, his voice breaking, everything welling up in his eye. But happy tears, for once. “Just—thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Pete,” Tony says, squeezing his shoulder. “It’s the least I can do. And hey, I wanted to try this.” He pulls back, still holding onto Peter, and he glances up at the rest of the room. “I was looking up mantras. Something to, you know, remind yourself where you are and who you are, how all the rest of that shit—it’s in the past.”

“You mean, like, something you repeat?” Peter asks. “Like in that movie _The Help?_”

Tony scoffs, nodding. “Yeah, sorta. Now, don’t think I’m corny, I wanna—I legitimately think this’ll help, bud. You can do it while you’re alone and I can say it to you when I see you struggling. And we can pass it on to May, Michelle—it can be something we all do.”

Peter tries to imagine what he’s about to say, but he’s open to it. Shit, he’s open to anything that might help.

“So we can say this,” Tony says. “Change the, you know, you’s to I’s when it’s you saying it to yourself. But—_You’re Peter Benjamin Parker. You’re Spider-Man. You’re strong, you’re capable, you’re safe and you are loved._ And if it gets real bad, we can amend that ending there. Start listing everybody you know who loves you. Might start getting into a long list.” Tony stares at him for a second, a little tentative, waiting on a response. “Whatcha think?”

Peter is way too emotional to think straight, his throat going tight. He glances off and—he doesn’t see Beck anywhere. He can’t even hear him. There’s nothing. 

“I think—good,” Peter says, and he reaches up, wiping at his eye. “I mean. I like it. I think—yes. Yeah. I think it’ll help.”

“Good,” Tony says, draping his arm around Peter’s shoulders as he starts to lead him back into the living room. “Listen, I know I’m a cornball—”

“You’re not,” Peter laughs, looking up at him. “Well. Maybe. A little.”

“There we go, see,” Tony says. He glances over and Peter follows his gaze, already repeating the mantra in his head, and he sees MJ and Morgan sharing a pair of headphones, both bopping along the exact same way to whatever song they’re listening to. Tony laughs, and looks down at Peter to make sure he sees.

“I hope your girlfriend has good taste in music,” Tony says. “We’re trying to mold Mo’s tastes early.”

_Girlfriend._

Everything. Right now. Is so much.

~

Tony leaves, with hugs and declarations that MJ better not be letting his little girl listen to swear words. Ned and the others come out with the pierogis, and they all watch together as the press conference begins, as Tony stands up there, Rhodey by his side, and announces Spider-Man’s return. Peter tries not to shrink in on himself, and he clutches the eye patch like a lifeline, reminding himself that Tony has one too. They eat like they’re watching a movie on a Saturday night, and MJ squeezes Peter’s hand, stroking his thumb and trying to keep him calm.

It’s strange. Tony, talking about him to the whole damn country, but never mentioning his name. Talking about the kidnapping without any details, nothing having to do with Peter’s eye or any of his new mental problems gifted to him by a month of torture. He talks about Spider-Man’s courage and resilience against ‘unthinkable odds’, facing off with a ‘madman’ whose only intentions were to hurt people and hit Tony himself where it hurts. Tony makes it clear that Beck is still out there, still at large, and Peter has to look away, feeling sick. 

He doesn’t want to act like this in front of MJ. Morgan, Ned—any of them.

_I’M STILL OUT THERE, I’M STILL OUT THERE. IN HERE, TOO, HUH? HUH, PETER?_

“But, despite this lunatic’s bad intentions, despite the conditions he was kept in and what he had to endure, Spider-Man was able to escape on his own,” Tony says. “He’s very much the hero you all love, and he knows you’re wondering and wanted me to let you that he’s back. He’s alright, he’s healing, he’s recovering, and you will see him soon.”

Peter hears the flurry of questions they knew would come Tony’s way at the end of his speech, but Tony moves out from behind the podium, Rhodey leading him off the stage.

Peter’s hearing goes high pitched and he reaches up to rub his eye, feeling the need to run. They’ll see Spider-Man soon? Peter had told Tony to say that. But he doesn’t know what the hell it means, if it’s close to the truth, what the hell soon translates to. How can he be Spider-Man again, like this? How can he?

“May,” he says, voice wavering. 

She’s holding one of the last pierogis and she glances up at him in a panic. “Honey?”

“I’m gonna, uh, go to my room for just a second, just a—just a bit here,” Peter says, swallowing hard, feeling all of their eyes on him. He glances down at MJ, and sees her hand reaching for his. He quickly grabs it, squeezing her fingers before letting go. “Uh, nobody leave,” he says, not looking, the high pitched noise getting worse and worse. “Just—gimme a minute, a couple minutes. I’m okay.”

“You sure?” May asks, moving like she’s ready to get up. 

“Sure, positive,” Peter says, and he starts down the hallway before anyone else can ask him anything.

He’s not freaking out. Not yet, anyway. He doesn’t know what he is, he doesn’t know what his emotions are doing. He just feels like he needs a moment alone, just a moment, because it’s so loud, where they are. He can hear all of their hearts beating, every small sound or movement. Part of him wants to be Spider-Man _now, now, right now_, but the other part—the part that Beck got to—says that’ll never fucking happen.

He lays face down on his bed and tries to make himself breathe. Measured breaths, like Tony always says. 

“I’m Peter Benjamin Parker,” he whispers to himself. “I’m Spider-Man. I’m—strong, I’m capable, I’m—I’m safe and I’m loved.” Measured breath. “I’m strong, I’m capable, I’m safe and I’m loved. Am I? Am I? I am. May loves me—Jesus, more than anything. Tony—Tony loves me, he’s—he’s given me so much, I’m part of his family. Ned—will always love me, no matter what. MJ…” He thinks about the way her hand felt in his.

He sighs, trying to level out whatever’s happening in his head. He repeats the mantra and tries to be louder than Beck is. Because Beck is _screaming._

About ten minutes later, there’s a knock at the door.

“I’m okay, May,” Peter says, turning over onto his back. “I’ll be in there in like—five minutes, tops.”

“It’s me,” Tony says. “We good? Did I embarrass you this much?”

Peter smiles a little bit to himself. Tony is a natural at telling the public what they want to hear, and he did Peter more justice than Peter believes he deserves.

_BELIEVE? YOU KNOW YOU’RE NOT ANYTHING LIKE HE MADE YOU OUT TO BE. YOU WERE A WHINING, SQUEALING BABY THE WHOLE FUCKING TIME, PETER. _

Peter blows out a breath, thinking the self-imposed isolation may be biting him in the ass. Ten minutes—that’s his cap, now, on being alone. “No,” he says, quickly pulling himself out of bed and moving over towards the door, trying to stay steady on his feet. “No, it was—” He opens the door and Tony’s standing there, sans jacket, a pierogi in his hand. “It was good,” Peter says, leaning in the doorway.

“You okay in here?” Tony asks, clearly concerned.

“Yeah,” Peter says, blowing out a breath. He can hear Beck laughing, somewhere behind him, and Peter is so fucking _tired_ of being afraid. It’s taking up too much real estate in his head. It’s like congestion. A beating, pulsing infection. He wants to be that person Tony talked about on TV. He wants to be the person people think Spider-Man is. 

“You sure?” Tony asks. “You wanna be alone?”

“I kinda did, for a second there,” Peter says, chewing on his lip. “But now I, uh, don’t want to anymore. I was just about to come—back out.”

“Good,” Tony says. “Cause I’ve got a couple people who want to see you. Just a couple. Okay, more than a couple.”

Peter steps forward and peers out into the hallway, and he can see them gathered down at the end of the hall—Steve, Sam, Bucky, Rhodey, Natasha, Wanda, Clint, and Bruce. He actually sees Bruce talking to MJ, and maybe that breaks his brain a little bit.

“Yeah, he’s back, he had no service where he was and had a hulk heart attack when he found out what was going on,” Tony says. “Looks like he and your girlfriend are getting along.”

“If you call her my girlfriend one more time _I’m_ gonna have a heart attack,” Peter says, staring down at the crowd. They’re all together, a big, shiny, clamoring group, and they wanna see him. They wanna see _him_.

Tony snorts. “So I can tell them all to get lost—”

_THEY JUST WANNA MAKE FUN OF YOU_

_No—_

_THEY DON’T EVEN GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOU_

_No, no, they do—_

_THEY KNOW YOU’RE DIFFERENT, THEY’RE FUCKING DISGUSTED—_

“No,” Peter says, out loud. 

Tony cocks his head. “No, you don’t wanna see them, or no, you do?” he asks.

“I do,” Peter says, finding that strength again, in the idea that they’re actually, waiting for him. He imagines telling his younger self that. Imagines the look on his ten year old face. The kid that hasn’t been through all this yet. The kid that loves superheroes. “I do, I wanna see them.”

“They’re like animals,” Tony says. “I can hardly keep ‘em back anymore.”

Peter swallows hard. Feels a tinge of doubt. “They really wanna—”

“Yes,” Tony says. “They really wanna. And they’re not Spider-Man fans—well, they are, they’re Spider-Man fans, but they’re Peter Parker fans, primarily. They wanna see how you’re doing, what you need, what they can do for you. They’re here for you, bud. You know that. I know you do.”

After that, they come in one by one. They each hug him for what feels like forever, no matter how much they spoke before all this happened, and none of them treat him like he’s wounded, none of them treat him like they need to tiptoe around him. He’s afraid he’s gonna get worn out, afraid Beck is gonna take advantage of his heightened state of emotion, but they each keep him distracted enough to keep Beck away. Natasha looks at him like he’s some sort of miracle, and he doesn’t know what to think of that. Of the way Wanda cups his face, the way Steve says his name, how Bucky looks at him. He doesn’t know what to think of any of these people talking to him like this—his idols, all of them, people that he can’t look at without getting stars in his eyes, acting like he’s important. Acting like he did something heroic.

He knows he didn’t. He likes their attention, it makes him feel good, feel wanted and special, but he knows who he is. He knows what went down. Beck shows him in technicolor every moment of every day, he paints it on the walls in blood, he screams out the details, he forces him to _remember_. Even talking to his favorite scientist/big green guy doesn’t banish it from his memory. 

But Peter appreciates what they’re doing. And Sam comes last, so Peter knows what’s coming.

“Care if I close the door, kid?” Sam asks.

“We gonna talk?” Peter asks, hovering in the middle of the room, still feeling all the hugs the others heaped upon him.

“Only if you want to,” Sam says. “But I know you need it. And I know how hard it is to ask. But if you don’t wanna talk, we can just play video games. I know Stark hooked you up with a new PS6 in here.”

Peter glances over at it, and realizes he hasn’t played yet. Something he needs to do with Ned. 

He doesn’t know if he’s avoiding talking or not. Once again, he’s split directly down the middle, but he figures whatever Beck is swaying him away from is the direction he needs to be going. “Uh, I do want to—I just don’t know, uh, how much I’ll be able to...dredge up, or how long I’ll be able to talk about it, or if—I’ll really be able to be honest with you, either, I—can barely be honest with myself.”

“That’s all completely fine and normal,” Sam says, and he walks over, sitting in the easy chair. He reclines it a little bit, scooting back so he’s comfortable. “I’m not here to harass you. I wanna help.”

“And I wanna—be helped,” Peter says, rolling his eye at himself and the waver in his voice. _It’s just Sam. C’mon._ He sits back on his bed, swinging his legs over the edge. “I don’t know. Have you ever—even being who you are, like, a soldier, an Avenger, have you ever felt—helpless?” 

“Tons of times,” Sam says, without missing a beat. “I’ve felt helpless when I couldn’t save people I loved. I’ve been shot down, shit, I dusted, just like you. Yeah, I have. That’s not out of the ordinary for people like us, Peter. In fact, we probably experience it more.”

Peter sighs, and keeps swinging his legs. “He just—I don’t know. I don’t know. He purposefully made me—smaller, than I should be. With—something like vibranium handcuffs, drugs, illusions, things that would—keep me down and out, I guess.” 

Beck himself manifests over by the door, and he sneers at Peter. He touches something on his wrist, like he used to do when he was about to activate an illusion, and Peter shudders. 

He swallows hard. “I don’t—I don’t like talking about the details,” he says. “I’m—I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize for that,” Sam says. “For real. There are some things that have happened to me that I’ll never be able to say out loud. That’s totally fair.”

Peter shifts his lips to the side, reaching up and touching the bandage. “He just—in the end, it’s just—he made me weak. And he made me crazy.”

“He made you _feel_ weak and crazy,” Sam says, raising his eyebrows at him. “He did not change who you are, fundamentally. Listen, our brains are hardwired to try and protect ourselves when we feel threatened, which is why the safety of your home sometimes doesn’t feel entirely safe, because you’re still seeing shit, you still wanna get away from it, you still have the tendency to panic. That’s all normal. Severe trauma on its own can lead to paranoia and extreme anxiety, and you experienced the tippy top of all that, with someone who can literally bend reality to his will. Doesn’t help that the guy was charismatic, and someone you trusted when you initially met him.”

“Yeah,” Peter says, softly. 

“Look how strong you are, Peter,” Sam says. “You need to focus on the strength you found through this. Especially in how you were able to escape. Not everybody could have managed that.”

Peter goes a little cold, and the lights seem to flicker, even though he knows it’s not actually happening. 

“Everything you’re experiencing is normal, especially for how extreme the situation was,” Sam says. “Completely normal and on par for how you should be reacting, so don’t beat yourself up. You need to ground yourself in the here and now.”

“How do I even do that, with everything that’s—happening in my head?” Peter asks. He doesn’t look over at Beck. He doesn’t focus on him. He sends energy in his direction—_You don’t belong here._

“One of my favorite techniques is finding something in your space, so let’s say your room, that you can interact with with each sense. So touch, see, smell, taste, hear. We can make up a little kit together if you want, keep it by your bed so you can get to it quick. What kind of candies you like best? Because this is a good opportunity for candy.”

“Twix bars,” Peter says, smiling when Sam smiles.

“There we go, and you’ve got good taste,” Sam says. “We can make up a box, get your Twix in there, label it up all pretty, and you’ll be able to grab at it when you’re feeling nervous and put yourself there in the moment. And that’s incredibly important, Pete, like I had Tony tell you before. Telling Beck he doesn’t belong in your space, because he doesn’t fit?”

“Yeah,” Peter says, eye only briefly cutting over to him before looking at Sam again. 

“You need to keep _yourself_ in the present moment,” Sam says. “The past is important, and it can influence us. But we can’t let it define us. The good parts, the shitty parts, anything having to do with your month with Beck. Focusing on the present can help us to dig through that trauma, rather than getting stuck in the past. Stay now—when and where you are, and it’ll help you move past the negative thoughts and the visions, because you know you _are_ past that. You’re in the here and now.”

Peter blows out a breath. “Yeah, that—that sounds right.”

“Does it sound like something you can do? I know it’s easier said than done.”

“Yeah,” Peter says, getting a little emotional. “No, I—I think I can. I can definitely try.”

“What makes it even more effective is to monitor your progress with journaling,” Sam says. “So get little Miss MoMo out there to give you one of her extra Spider-Man spirals and you can start checking in with yourself each day. The frequency of your panic attacks, nervous moments, seeing things you can’t get past. Rate each day from one to ten, and each day you can see how far you’ve come, what’s tripping you up. I can give you stickers, so it doesn’t feel so much like homework. Try and make it fun.”

Peter snorts. “No, I—I really like writing stuff down.” He reaches up, nudging the heel of his hand into his eye. “Sam—thanks. For real. I know I can’t—really talk too much or—admit things, but you—all this, it—I just—” He’s babbling like an idiot.

“No problem, kid,” Sam says. “You’re part of the family—everyone’s favorite member, if we’re being honest.”

Peter lets himself believe that.

“Now, when I mentioned the PS6, I was trying to be slick,” Sam says, nodding towards it. “What games you got?”

Peter grins, getting up and motioning him over.

~

It’s Peter’s idea, the next day, to go to one of the private gyms a couple floors up, just to do some physical training, just to see what he can do. He feels like he needs to test himself. He and Tony work out on treadmills, they lift weights, and Tony’s on Peter’s good side, so Peter can see him watching anxiously the whole time, in case he has to step in.

Peter sees Beck in the mirrors. Sees Beck after Beck after Beck, sees him morphing in and out of himself, sees him growing large and menacing, taking up the whole room. He holds his hands out like a magician, like a conductor, taking hold of Peter’s world. 

_Measured breaths. Measured breaths. The walls really aren’t splintering. They’re not._

“You’re doing good,” Tony says, as Peter puts down the two hundred pound weights. “You’re doing _great_, bud.”

Peter doesn’t really trust it, though he nods and tries to go along. Two hundred pounds isn’t much for him, but he doesn’t wanna push himself to more quite yet. “Let’s do the stairmaster thing.”

Tony snorts. “Gonna wear me the hell out.”

“We can stop after this,” Peter says. “I’m—getting tired.” He’s tired in a different way than he’d normally say. Like he’s wrapped up in a wet blanket, and sinking into muddy snow. A broken body. Abandoned. 

He clears his throat, trying to ignore the wedge of darkness. He looks at Tony. “And anyways, you don’t have to do it too! Just let me do it.”

“Shit, I’m not gonna stand by and stare into the abyss,” Tony says. “Wanna keep up with you, young gun.”

Peter remembers the days when Beck would keep him moving for hours and hours at a time, sparring while wearing wrist, ankle and waist weights, illusions that kept him running around the entire warehouse until his legs physically wouldn’t move anymore. Beck kicked him when he was down. He’d drag him up and slam him against the wall.

Peter misses the second step as soon as he starts on the stairmaster. Nearly trips and faceplants into the control panel.

“Maybe lower it down a little bit,” Tony says, from beside him. “The speed, just—slow it up.”

“Okay,” Peter says, cheeks burning, listening to hysterical laughter behind him. Laughter he knows well by now. _Who gives a shit, right? He laughs at everything. He does it just to hurt you._ Peter slows up the pace, but somehow, misses the goddamn second step _again_ when he restarts. Then he misses the third and has to hold onto the bars on either side so he doesn’t completely collapse. He warps them with his strength, bending the metal into something unrecognizable.

“Okay, okay,” Tony says, reaching over and pressing the power button.

“Goddamnit,” Peter says, jumping off, reaching up and scratching at the bandage out of frustration. “My depth perception is just—fucked. It’s fucked.” The floor falls away, moldering and crumpling like a damp coffin, and Peter takes a few frantic steps back. Beck took advantage of his thing about being trapped under a bunch of shit he can’t move. He took advantage of it...a lot.

Peter shakes his head, not looking down, not looking to his right where Beck flashes into nothing behind Tony. 

He’s gonna have plenty to write in his journal tonight.

“Pete, it’ll be fine,” Tony says, approaching him. 

“I don’t know how it’ll be fine,” Peter snaps. “Because—I can’t walk upstairs, so. How am I gonna swing from building to building? How am I gonna be able to tell where to shoot my webs, where they’ll latch?”

“Listen, did we forget all the other stuff you _were_ able to do?” Tony asks. “You can still lift two hundred pounds like nothing. Like picking up a goddamn—shoe, or something. Treadmill, still fine.”

“I can’t climb stairs,” Peter says, his chest aching, a tight twinge in his throat. “Which means, when the time comes, I won’t be able to get into my apartment. I have to super concentrate to grab shit all the time—” 

He thinks about all of it. The whole world looks different, and that’s without the fucking hallucinations. His eye stings with tears and he swallows hard. He keeps feeling like this will end—that one day he’ll wake up and things will be back to normal. He’ll be able to see again. The world will open up again.

But his healing doesn’t cover stolen eyes. He can’t grow a fucking leg back, like a lizard. Even with everything he has, all his power, all his healing—he can still be touched by permanent injury. 

Everyone’s words and assurances swarm around him like bees. He winces, biting down on the inside of his cheek until he tastes blood. 

“Listen, bud, it might have been a little early to start doing this,” Tony starts. “Working like this. You’re still healing.”

“No,” Peter says, digging his nails into his palms. “No, I wanted to.”

“I know you did, and that’s why I went along with it—”

“Tony,” Peter says, hanging his head. Tony goes quiet, and Peter can feel the concern radiating off of him. Peter sucks in a breath. “I know everybody thinks that I’m capable and that it’s in our mantra and everything,” he says. “But I don’t think. I don’t think I can be Spider-Man again. Not like this. I’m—I need to be able to see everything, be—aware of everything all around me and be able to react and I just—I know everyone is behind me and they think I can do anything but I just—”

Tony takes him by the shoulders, and Peter looks up, stopping dead in the middle of his sentence. 

_YOU’RE RIGHT, YOU CAN’T BE SPIDER-MAN. GIVE UP. YOU NEVER DESERVED IT TO BEGIN WITH._

“Breathe,” Tony says. “We’re okay.”

Peter shakes his head, drawing in a breath. “I just. Wanna face it, if this is like—the end of Spider-Man, you know. I don’t want—to get attached to the idea of doing something that I just—can’t do.”

“I completely get why you’re worried, and I would be too, but our faith in you isn’t misplaced,” Tony says. “You’re—you don’t give yourself credit, ever, and it’s _very_ ridiculous, Pete, and I’m not being mean. You have done so much, been through so much, and you’re so damn strong but you don’t—acknowledge your strengths or the amazing things you do, because you’re always raising the bar for yourself and never meeting your own expectations. No one can meet those expectations, Pete. Not one person. Not even Pepper in her Rescue armor. And she can do—amazing things.”

Peter sighs, cracking his jaw, trying to ignore the flashing lights over in the corner.

“There’s someone I want you to meet,” Tony says. “I know Thor had a whole deal with his eye but Rocket was able to clear that up with some space replacement or something—you’re still gonna chat with him when he gets back—but the guy I have in mind, he’s—he’s more local, and he’s had to deal with vision problems and costumed-heroing for a good few years now. Works out of Hell’s Kitchen.”

Peter’s attention is piqued, and his brows furrow. “Hell’s Kitchen—wait. Daredevil?”

“I know him,” Tony says. “Him and his alter ego.”

Peter feels like his brain is exploding a little bit, and not because of anything Beck did in there. He already loves Daredevil, always has, so this—this is—he’s interested in what’s going on here. “What do you mean vision problems? Is that why he wears the mask with the weird eyes? Is there something wrong with his eyes?”

Tony lets go of him and glances away, like someone might be listening. But there’s no one else in here. No one real, anyway.

“He’s got an alter ego for a reason, Pete,” Tony says, looking at him again. “So, when I tell you, and when you meet him, you’ve gotta keep it on the downlow. Despite whatever fanboying your heart desires.”

“I mean, I’m not gonna broadcast it,” Peter says. “To me he’ll just be some guy. Unless he’s my teacher or something.”

“His name is Matt, and he’s completely blind,” Tony says. “And he does all kinds of shit. He can scale buildings without sticky hands and feet. So, I’m gonna go see him tomorrow, and try to set up a meet. Because I think hanging out with him and seeing what he has to say can definitely help you. How’s that sound?”

Peter gapes. Daredevil is completely blind? He’s seen plenty of footage of Daredevil. He always wondered about his mask but he never imagined him _blind_. It feels like a sunshiny ray of hope in the darkness, so much so that Beck himself isn’t anywhere to be found in the room, struck out by another chord of optimism. 

“That—yeah,” Peter says. “Yeah, yeah. No, I wanna—yes, I wanna meet him, I wanna talk to him.” His excitement is reverberating through his chest. 

“He might not wanna come here, I’m gonna see, but if he doesn’t—are we good with venturing back out into the world?” Tony asks.

That’s a different story, and Peter can hear the water dripping again, like he’s stuck in a deep well. He remembers what it was like, on his way home. The shimmering street lights. The rain splashed on the streets. Elbowing around crowds of people. The excruciating pain, his face like pulp. It was like he was someone else. It was like he was dying. “Um,” he says, trying to latch onto how he was feeling a moment before. “Yeah, if you—if you go with me.”

“Definitely,” Tony says, fast, without a second thought. “I’m not leaving you again.”

~

Tony Stark knows Matt Murdock because of a Thing.

More specifically, he knows Matt Murdock because Daredevil almost died in his arms about a month after the initial snap. 

They were both handling their respective losses differently, though both incredibly destructively. Tony was obsessively working on the problem, though he’d been advised to stay on bed rest. Of course, he couldn’t do that, because Peter was dead and the world was in shambles and it was _his fault_. He wasn’t himself—he was how many pounds less and heartbroken and he didn’t know yet that Pepper was pregnant because she was too afraid to tell him. Matt had lost his best friends and two of his teammates, too, and he took to the streets harder and more intensely than he had before. There were so many people that needed help, so many people trying to hurt themselves, and Tony was in the middle of storing Peter and May’s things when he saw Daredevil drop out of the sky, bleeding and barely breathing.

Tony got him a private room at the already overrun hospital so no one else could see his face. But he met Matt that day, and he knew the man was annoyed that he’d seen his face once they rolled him away. Bleeding, dying. Already annoyed.

Tony waited. And after the surgeries, once they had Matt in bed, Tony couldn’t stop talking to him. Couldn’t stop telling him, about everything. What he went through, what he lost. He knew he sounded like a lunatic, like the exact opposite of what most of the world knew him to be. But he wasn’t himself, not anymore, not after what happened on Titan. Not after having Peter’s ashes on his hands. 

Matt didn’t really talk to him, at first. But Tony didn’t stop talking. He filled the silence, like Peter used to do. And eventually, Matt started answering. Like Tony had broken something in him, or maybe the fall had. Tony found out about the blindness, about the people he lost, about how he’d been completely alone since it happened. They talked for hours and hours in that hospital room. Pepper was worried Tony had gone off and died. 

Tony heard more from Matt Murdock in that one night than in the entire time he’s known him. 

Tony oversaw his recovery, made sure he got back on his feet. Tony made sure to keep up with him, though Matt never said what the hell happened to him that night or what in the world he was doing. And after that, Pepper finally told Tony about the baby on the way. And Tony—though he doesn’t exactly like thinking about it now—pretty much gave up, and he left the world behind. But he never stopped thinking about Peter, working on the time travel theories on the side almost every day. And he never stopped checking in on Matt.

He’s known the guy for five years now, had a few long conversations with him, had lunch with him more than six or seven times and helped him out financially despite his protests. But he’s still, _still_ not sure if Matt actually, truly trusts him.

He’s never introduced him to anybody. Not even Pepper. So he’s going out on a limb here.

They meet in a park the next day, and Tony still doesn’t get how the hell Matt can find his way to him. He has the tendency to want to start yelling out Matt’s name to get his attention, but he knows that’s a surefire way to get the man to start heading the other way. So he waits, and Matt finds him. Sits down on the bench Tony claimed, fits his cane between his knees.

“Stark,” Matt says. 

“When are you gonna call me Tony?” Tony asks, leaning on his leg. “I’ve cried in front of you. C’mon. That should warrant a first name basis.”

Matt smiles, just slightly. “I heard you on the news the other day,” he says. “Talking about Spider-Man.”

Straight to the point. “Uh, yeah,” Tony says. “That’s actually—why I wanted to see you, why I—called you sixteen times before you answered.”

“Gotta get that new phone,” Matt says. “Foggy says I’m way behind.”

“I’ll send you a Stark phone,” Tony says. “No problem.”

“No, it’s fine, I’ll get one down the line—”

“Nah, totally fine, on the house—”

“Tony—”

Tony laughs, grinning. “There we go.”

Matt looks just as put upon as he did the last time Tony saw him, which was—about a week before Steve and the others showed up at the cabin. 

“Is this why you called me here?” Matt asks, clenching his hands. “To harass me about technology? Because I get enough of that from other people.”

“No, no, this is actually serious,” Tony says. “I’m being serious, for once.” He clears his throat. “Uh, you know I’ve told you about Peter.”

“Of course,” Matt says. The first thing they talked about, when they first met. Matt doesn’t forget. One of the only times he called first—when Tony was laid up after wielding the gauntlet. _How the hell did you survive? Did you get the kid back?_ “Is he alright?” 

Tony doesn’t know how much Matt can see. He explained it to him, way back when, but he didn’t get it then and he doesn’t get it now. He’s blind, for all intents and purposes, but there’s—a world on fire? Something? Tony has no clue. But he feels like, somehow, Matt can see the look on his face, and his change of body language. “Uh, I don’t think I ever—no, I know I didn’t. I never told you.”

“Told me what?” Matt asks, leaning a little closer, like he knows the information is kept close to Tony’s heart.

Tony doesn’t really like saying it out loud. Anyone could hear, and anyone could hurt Peter. Someone already hurt him. “Uh, what you said you heard me talking about on TV? My kid, is, uh. He’s—he _is_—”

“Okay,” Matt says. “I understand what you’re saying.”

Tony heaves a sigh. “I didn’t discuss the full extent of what happened to him,” he says. “And I was wondering if you could, uh, potentially—”

“Stark, I don’t know if I’m the right kind of person for this sort of thing,” Matt says, shifting uncomfortably. “I can guess why you’re coming to me. Does he have some kind of...vision loss? That he sustained in the escape? Because, I’m sorry, that’s awful, but I’m not anyone’s—therapy. I had to deal with what happened to me in my own way, and your kid, he—if he’s as strong as you say he is, he’ll be able to handle whatever it is.”

Tony shakes his head. “No, it wasn’t—it wasn’t an accident, I—I really didn’t get to say the full extent, and that was on purpose, because—Pete didn’t want me to. But, uh, that asshole had him for a full month. Tortured him constantly, broke his—broke his legs, broke his—spirit, and—near the end of it, he carved out his—left eye, with a knife. He can—barely talk about it, but it’s not—it wasn’t an accident. It was done on purpose, and Pete is—he’s a kid. I don’t know if you remember. He’s—seventeen years old.” Tony’s voice breaks, and he looks down. “He’s seventeen and he’s—he’s—”

“Stop,” Matt says, quickly. Tony glances up at his face, and sees him breathing a little differently now, reaching up to adjust his glasses. “Jesus. I—Tony, I’m sorry.”

“He loves Daredevil,” Tony says, voice wavering. “I thought you could help him. Not so much as therapy. But more as an—example that this won’t stop him from being who he is. Because he’s—it’s still new, and he’s still—traumatized, and I can’t—I can’t help him with this. And it’s killing me. And I think you’ll give him hope.”

Matt nods, gripping his cane tight. “I’ll meet him,” he says. “Of course I will. Whenever he wants.”

Tony feels like he’s on the verge of collapse. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” Matt says. “Just call me. Tell me when.”

“Jesus, thank you, Murdock,” Tony says, clapping him on the shoulder. “You’ll make his day, honestly.”

“Good,” Matt says, a little stilted. “Sounds like he—deserves to get some days made.”

~

Tony doesn’t get the call until he’s parking the car in the tower garage. He sees Rhodey’s name flashing on the car’s display, and he narrows his eyes, answering it before he gets out.

“What’s—”

“_Tones, where are you? Something’s happening—_”

Tony’s heart seizes. “What?” he snaps.

“_We think it’s another trigger word situation, except, uh, Peter’s being violent this time, and you know this kid is stronger than most of us combined, his friends are here too, and, uh, shit, we can’t—_”

The world tilts.

“I’m downstairs, coming up, what floor?” Tony asks, all in one rush of breath.

“_We’re in the living room right outside his room—_” Tony hears something crash in the background, and a bunch of people talking over each other.

“I’m coming,” Tony says, immediately disconnecting the call. 

He moves faster than he thinks he ever fucking has before, his legs screaming for him to stop, to take a break, but he can’t, dammit, Peter needs him. The elevator moves slower than molasses and Tony is close to cardiac arrest, terrified of what he’s gonna find. Bucky had only started working with Peter on the trigger words, and the poor kid can’t for the life of him determine what any of them are, and he’d been worried about this happening, he’d been terrified, and none of it sounded good on the phone and Tony didn’t even hear much—

Tony feels like he’s gonna projectile vomit as the floor numbers grow, and then the elevator opens and it’s like the world comes to a halt, like he steps outside of himself for fear of fucking it all up. Like how he has Friday lay things out for him, so he can get a look, because he just needs to get a look, he’s got to get a _look—_

The living room is only a few long paces from the elevator, and Peter is closest to him, his back turned. His hands are red with blood.

Steve, Sam and Bucky are facing him, all bleeding in some way, hands up in surrender—

Rhodey is in the corner, closest to the hallway to Peter’s room, with May, Michelle, and Ned behind him—May is fine, but both Michelle and Ned look worse for wear, and Tony’s heart drops—

He surges forward as time starts again, and launches himself at Peter, wrapping his arms around him from behind, pinning Peter’s own arms to his sides. 

The kid lets out a growl and struggles against him, and Tony has to lean out of the way as Peter tries to slam their heads together.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Tony says, into his ear. “It’s Tony. It’s Tony.”

Peter still struggles, and elbows Tony hard in the stomach. Tony nearly doubles over but keeps hold of him, the iron arm coming in handy for once. He tries to catch his breath, readjusting his hold on the kid. 

“This isn’t you,” Tony says, a little winded now, not looking at anybody else, just focusing on Peter, only Peter. “Listen. Listen. You’re Peter Benjamin Parker. You’re Spider-Man. You’re strong, you’re capable, you’re safe and you are loved. You hear me? You hear me? I love you, Pete. May loves you. Your friends love you, the world loves you. This isn’t you. This isn’t you.”

Peter gasps, wilting a little bit, but still struggling.

“You’re safe, kid,” Tony says, trying to readjust his arms around him again, making it more of a hug than an attack. “You’re fine, you’re fine. He doesn’t have you, he doesn’t, he’s not here to make you do this shit. You don’t have to do this. It’s not you. Come back. Come back.”

Peter jerks hard, groaning, but Tony can see him shaking his head, fighting against it.

“Come on, Pete,” Tony says. “It’s not you. You’d never hurt any of us. Ever, Pete, I know you wouldn’t.”

Peter’s legs drop out from underneath him, and he reaches up, gripping Tony’s arms. 

“Oh my God,” Peter wails, and Tony can feel him looking around, his gaze fixing on where Rhodey is standing with May and his friends. “Oh no. Oh _God._”

“Baby,” May says, rushing out from behind Rhodey.

“MJ,” Peter sobs. “Ned, MJ, I—I—no, no, no, oh my God. Oh my God.”

Tony looks up at them, and can truly see now what Peter is noticing. There’s a cut across Michelle’s forehead, and Ned has a bloody nose that matches Cap’s exactly. 

He hurt them both. 

“Honey, it’s fine,” May says, bending down next to them. “It’s not your fault, we’re all okay, nothing happened that can’t be fixed—”

“God, I’ve—I’ve—I’ve gotta—” Peter works his way out of Tony’s grasp, and rushes out of the room, past everyone else and into his bedroom. 

Tony sits back on the ground, the silence from all of them absolutely deafening.

He dips his head into his hands, trying to stave off tears that come anyway.


	5. you've got me

Peter is in a tornado.

It’s raining in his room, but not regular rain—thick blood falls from the void taking up the length of the ceiling, and it suffocates him. He has his knees drawn up to his chest and he rocks back and forth, humming to himself, trying to be louder than the lightning, than the raging storm all around him. Beck is monologuing, talking and talking and talking and talking, so much so that he’s talking over himself, talking into the ether, talking and talking and talking and picking away at Peter’s brain.

He hurt them. Peter hurt them. He made her bleed. He hurt MJ. He hurt Ned—Ned, who has stood by him every step of the way, no matter what. And MJ. He hurt the girl he—the girl he—

_JESUS, PETER, YOU COULD HAVE KILLED THEM!_

He wants to crawl over to the box he and Sam made together, wants to ground himself, feel the slinky inside, smell the hacky sack they sprayed with MJ’s perfume, eat a Twix, but he doesn’t deserve to be grounded, he doesn’t deserve to be safe. He doesn’t deserve to be here at all.

Peter can only remember pieces. It was like he was—stuck, behind a glass wall. He remembers shoving her. Remembers hitting Ned. Then Steve was there, and Bucky, and Sam, and he remembers lashing out. Someone else was controlling his body, and he was stuck, strapped down, screaming.

He remembers the pain in her eyes. The blood on her forehead. 

He couldn’t stop. He couldn’t stop.

He tried to hurt Tony, too. Thank God he didn’t hurt May. Thank God, because if he’d hurt May—

The storm rages harder when he thinks of it, and his stomach turns.

_“Come on, hit me!” Beck yells, motioning at his own face._

_Peter stumbles. His legs are chained together, too close, and whatever drugs Beck injected into his arm are streaming through his system. Making him see two of everything. “I’m gonna throw up,” he mutters, his own voice echoing inside his head._

_Beck rolls his eyes. “Jesus Christ, Peter. This is embarrassing, Spider-Man, c’mon.”_

_Shimmering. A drip of something drops on the crown of his head and feels like it expands into an ocean of water. Drowning him._

_He takes one step forward, tries to throw a punch, but his hands are chained too close together, too._

_Beck dodges, laughing, and pops him right in his face. The pain blooms along with the blood from his nose, and he stumbles back, hitting the wall. _

_“Christ, kid, we’ve got a long way to go,” Beck says, approaching him slowly._

“Peter, let us in,” Tony’s voice says, from the other side of the door. “It isn’t your fault, kid. It isn’t.”

“We’re all fine, baby,” May’s voice says. “Promise you. Everyone is okay.”

_EVERYONE IS DYING, BECAUSE OF YOU. BECAUSE YOU’RE DANGEROUS. BECAUSE YOU’RE WHAT I MADE YOU. YOU WERE NEARLY PERFECT. ONLY ONE THING YOU WOULDN’T DO, HUH? NO MATTER HOW MANY TIMES I PLACED HIM IN FRONT OF YOU?_

Peter squeezes his eye shut tight, and he can feel Beck’s hands on his shoulders. 

“You don’t belong here,” Peter mutters, sounding like a child. “You don’t. Belong here.”

_YOU DON’T BELONG ANYWHERE. _

“Peter,” MJ’s voice says, and Peter freezes. “You open the door for me and Ned or I’m gonna get one of these super guys to knock it down. I’m serious.”

Peter breathes hard, shaking, peering over his shoulder. He can’t tell if he’s hallucinating her or not, and he sees feet moving back and forth underneath the door. He waits.

“Peter,” she says, again. Calmly, surely. “I’m serious, I said. There are numerous people in this tower who can break the door, like, I can probably do it if I concentrate hard enough.” There’s a beat, and Peter stares at the door, feeling insane. “Please,” she says. 

He wavers to his feet, and can barely determine the amount of space between him and the door, almost running into it. He unlocks it with trembling fingers, shivering through a wave of cold. When he opens it she’s standing there, Ned beside her—she’s got a bandage on her forehead, and he thinks he sees bruising starting to form on her cheek. Ned’s nose looks like it’s been set back into place, and he’s got two bloody bandages sticking out of his nostrils that he quickly gets rid of when he sees Peter. He sniffles.

Tony and May are standing behind them, and if Peter cranes his neck he can see some of the others standing back in the living room.

His heart feels like it’s gonna burst, and his shame keeps him silent. 

“We’re fine,” MJ says, firmly. She looks at Ned, raising her eyebrows.

“I’m fine,” Ned says. He laughs, shrugging. “I mean, I’m completely fine. You know I have a crush on Doctor Cho and I got her all up in my face so like, honestly, it’s fine.”

Peter blows out a breath, and meets MJ’s gaze again. “I hurt you,” he says. “I hurt you, and I couldn’t stop myself. You’re not safe—”

“Stop,” MJ says. “Peter, for real. No one blames you. Nobody. And I know what word it is, because I’m the one that said it, and everybody knows now. Soldier guy is gonna add it to your trigger word lessons and you’re gonna get past it because you’re _you._”

Peter swallows hard, and he can’t stop looking at the bandage on her forehead. “I’m sorry,” he stutters, eye filling with tears. “MJ, I—I hate that I—hurt you guys—”

She steps forward, pulling the door open wider, and wraps him up in a hug before he can do anything about it. The lightning rumbles behind him, and he can feel each time Beck broke his legs—the terror when he knew it was gonna happen, how raw his throat felt from begging him to stop. But he never did. He never stopped.

“I don’t care,” MJ whispers, tucking her face into his neck. “I don’t. We’ll work through it. We’ll work through it.”

He reaches up to hold her, closing his eye. 

_You don’t deserve her. You don’t deserve this._

~

He broke Captain America’s nose. Well, Sam is sort of Captain America now. Or, they both are. Peter doesn’t know. It doesn’t matter. He broke Steve’s nose. He apologizes, a thousand times, to all of them, but it doesn’t feel like it does the job because they won’t accept it. Not in the _we hate you_ way, but in the _we love you_ way, which is worse. They won’t let him take responsibility, when his whole damn heart is latched to this incident. He sees Rhodey showing Tony the footage, and Peter feels sick, no matter how much MJ tells him that she’s fine, that they’re all fine. 

He’s something Beck can use. He’s a weapon. 

He doesn’t want to be alone, but they don’t let him, anyway. It feels as if the warehouse is just behind his eye, and if he closes it he’ll be back there, all of this will end, his confinement will resume. He looks at Sam and feels ashamed that he can’t follow the things they talked about. 

He steals away into the bathroom and logs in to Tony’s server, feeling sick and wishing he would stop but surging forward anyway, and he accesses the security cameras. His hands shake as he selects the time, and he sees—the three of them sitting there on the couch, and then she says it—he thinks he may know the word now, because he hangs on everything she says and he remembers the part of the story when his brain cut out—and he sees himself jerk. He throws himself backwards in the video, and the two of them follow him, almost immediately.

He was trying to fight it.

But she got too close.

He sees himself grab her shoulders and hurl her at the wall, and a wave of dizziness goes through him. She hits hard, and he doesn’t even falter, punching Ned straight in the face before he turns around, trying to move from the room. Peter doesn’t know what his endgame was, what he was searching for, and the others skid into the picture before he can go after whatever it was. 

They avoid hand to hand combat, but he’s sure they could see the look in his eye, they could see he wasn’t himself, and he attacks anyway, darting out of Sam’s way and punching him in the back, grabbing Steve and Bucky’s heads and knocking them together. MJ actually tries to grab him from behind and he elbows her, hard in the forehead, and Peter sees May rush in with Rhodey and his whole world shifts—

He knows he didn’t hurt her, he knows, but he could have, he could have—

He puts his phone down on the counter and rushes over to puke in the toilet. It reminds him of how much he threw up in the warehouse—he did it a lot, because he was rejecting the drugs, because Beck was beating him to a bloody pulp, kicking him in the stomach over and over and over again. Peter remembers the shape of his boot. Remembers catching it in his hands and flipping him onto his back. Remembers Beck’s laughter, and then the electrocution.

He was always two steps ahead of Peter’s frenzied attempts.

“Hey,” Tony’s voice says, from outside the door. “You think I can’t see your little username bouncing in the corner of my screen?”

Peter groans, sitting back on his knees and wiping his mouth.

“Peter,” Tony says. “I don’t want you watching that footage. I don’t want you torturing yourself.”

Peter rubs his forehead, tries to keep from crying. “Is it just you?” he asks. “Out there?” He’s not in his own bathroom, he’s in the one in the hall, because he thought they wouldn’t notice him coming in here. But of course, all eyes are on him. Him and all his fucking problems. Him and his one eye. Stupid, idiot cyclops, turned into a monster by one word. 

“Just me,” Tony says, but Peter hears some shuffling that sounds suspiciously like May’s slippers. “Just me, bud. Is the door unlocked? You okay in there?”

“It’s unlocked,” Peter says. He gets a flash of throwing MJ across the room, of punching Ned, and he gags, almost pukes again. He glances up as the door opens, and sees that the entire ceiling is on fire. Pieces of it smolder and bristle, turning black, and he wants for them to fall and consume him.

_YOU ARE A WHOLE FUCKING MESS, PARKER. _

Tony slips in through a small crack in the door, like he’s trying to keep other people from looking in. He glances at the phone, and then at Peter himself. 

“Pete,” Tony says, sounding disappointed, and Peter closes his eye.

“I don’t remember it properly,” Peter says, resting his forearm on the edge of the toilet seat. “It’s like—I’ve got flashes of it. And feelings. But it’s all—like, tinted red, like a—stained glass window or something. And I can’t—knowing that I did that—” His voice catches and he shivers, but there’s sweat breaking out on his forehead. He’s cold and hot at the same time. One foot here, one in the warehouse.

Beck, pulling his fingers apart, breaking them one by one.

Peter looks up. Tony tilts his head at him, and moves over to the counter. He looks at the phone, grimacing, and then he touches a few buttons, probably turning off the footage. He puts the phone aside, then, and grabs a washcloth, running it under the water. 

“I know you’re not gonna forgive yourself for this,” Tony says, putting the washcloth down and changing the tap temperature. He holds a cup under the water now, and Peter watches, trying to concentrate. Trying to stop honing in on that moment. “I know this was—the worst possible thing that could have happened.”

Peter hangs his head, closing his eye again. His guilt is out of this world. It’s stopping his breath. It’s eating away at him, digging his grave. He thinks of how much worse it could have been. He could have killed someone. 

He remembers Beck’s knife in his palm. Carving along his life line.

Peter startles when he feels the washcloth against his face. He opens his eye and sees Tony kneeling there, peppering the wetness along Peter’s forehead before he wipes at his mouth and gets rid of the sick clinging there. 

“I told you before I was dangerous,” Peter says, as Tony puts the washcloth aside and hands him the cup of water. Peter holds it with both hands, but doesn’t drink yet. “Imagine if—Morgan and Pepper had been there.” His chest aches and he shakes his head, looking away from him. 

“They weren’t,” Tony says. “And kid, I don’t know how many times I’m gonna need to say this before you believe me, but what happened is not your fault. This is _that asshole_. He did this. It isn’t you.”

“I got taken—”

“Hey,” Tony says, cutting him off gently. He makes Peter look at him. “We’re not gonna do that. Not anymore. You are not perfect. You are not indestructible. You are not held up to standards that none of the rest of us can meet. I fucking refuse to allow you to blame yourself for your own kidnapping and everything else that came of it. I won’t hear it anymore and I don’t want you thinking it. You’re locking yourself up by doing that, Pete. You’re not allowing yourself to move on because you’re keeping yourself there at the beginning.”

Peter doesn’t say anything. He knows it’s true.

“I’m right there with you with the blame yourself thing,” Tony says. “You know I do that all the time over every little thing. But this—no. We’re not gonna look at this like that. We blame him. Entirely.”

_OH I’M SUCH A BAD GUY. BUT CAN YOU DO THAT? HUH?_

Peter feels his hands on his shoulders again. 

“Take a drink, bud,” Tony says. 

Peter looks down at the glass, and he’d nearly forgotten that he was holding it. He quickly takes a sip.

“This happened the way it happened,” Tony says. “We know the word now, and we’re lucky it went off this well because it was only a few cuts and bruises and now we can keep it from happening again. We can work on it and get it out of your head and make it a perfectly normal word again.”

Peter holds the cup so tightly that he nearly busts it. Tears spring to his eye and he feels dizzy, and desperate, and full of sorrow. Pain and sadness so thick that he doesn’t know how to address it properly. Doesn’t know how to get through it. “I just hate being—a loose cannon, in so many different ways. I like her. So much. And I hurt her. No matter why I did it, I still _did it_. I hurt her, my whatever she is, and I broke Ned’s nose and Ned is always in my corner and I _broke his nose—_”

“Peter, it’s an accident,” Tony says. “That’s what it is. Did you go at them with intentions? Did you?”

Peter knows he didn’t. He shakes his head. 

“No. You don’t even remember it right. You were not present, you were not making choices. I understand why you’re upset, kid, I do, but it is not _your fault_. Nobody blames you. Especially not her and Ned.”

Peter takes another sip of water, a headache starting to form at the base of his skull. He puts the cup down on the ground beside his knee and leans forward, resting his forehead against Tony’s chest. “I’m ashamed of it,” Peter says, so quiet that he barely hears himself. 

“Don’t be,” Tony says, gripping the back of his neck. “They’re okay. They’re only worried about you. I don’t want you to direct more negative attention your own way, Pete. You don’t deserve it. You’ve been through enough. Don’t think about it, okay? Please, I’m begging you. Pretend it didn’t happen.”

“I’ll try,” Peter says. He swallows a sob, and scoots a little closer to Tony, lets him wrap his arm around him. 

“I shouldn’t have left you,” Tony says. 

“You can’t just sit around with me all the time,” Peter says. His eye is closed but figures move in the dark. Like when Beck would turn all the lights off, and come at him when he least expected it. “I don’t want to—expect that.”

“I should have just had Matt come here,” Tony says. “I could have harassed him into it.”

“Oh,” Peter says, wiping his eye. “You got to see him?”

“Yeah,” Tony says. “He’ll meet you. Whenever you want.”

Peter feels selfish at the strike of excitement that goes through him. “You’ll have to, uh, tell him the words, so he knows. So he doesn’t say them.”

“I will,” Tony says. “And I’ll be there, so. I’ll just tackle him if he does something stupid.”

Peter smiles a little bit. Beck can’t touch him when Tony’s got him. He doesn’t have reign when Tony’s around. 

“Let’s go back out there, okay?” Tony asks, squeezing his shoulder. “I promise you. Nobody is blaming you. We’re all prepared for anything but our main focus is you getting better. However we can make that happen. Remember, you’re loved. Do I have to start with the list? I’ve got the list on standby.”

“No,” Peter says. He pulls back, wiping at his eye again. “I’m just gonna try to—I’m gonna try not to—think about it. It’s just gonna be hard, while their—while their wounds are healing.”

“They’ll go fast,” Tony says. “And it’s not gonna happen again.”

Peter nods, trying to lock that sentiment in. “It’s not gonna happen again.”

“You’ve always wanted to meet Shuri, right?” Tony asks, gripping his shoulder. “We can get her to video chat with you and Bucky while you’re working together on the trigger words. She’s the only reason why he’s normal right now. She can get these two words out of your skull, no problem.”

Peter nods again. He’s half inside that place he’s made for himself inside his head, giving up, giving in. How does he go on and not blame himself? Because they don’t want him to? He doesn’t know how to let go of his own inclinations. Won’t they still be hovering in the back of his head, every time he meets their eyes?

He can’t keep secrets. He can’t keep more secrets.

“How do you let go of your own guilt?” Peter asks, softly.

Tony looks at him, and it seems like he’s thinking fast. “You don’t,” he says. “But you have to learn to trust other people and what they say. They’re seeing it from the other side, kid. They see things you can’t see. And I don’t mean anything literal.”

Peter glances down, reaching up to pick at the bandage.

“Hey,” Tony says. “I love you. Okay? We all do.”

Peter looks up at him, and tries to imagine what he sees. What they all do. How they’ll be able to forgive him. How they don’t even believe they have to forgive him to begin with. 

“I love you too,” he says.

~

The next day Tony tells May about the meet with Matt, and she puts on her shoes and immediately insists that she’s going with them.

“I don’t care that he’s a superhero,” May says, arms crossed over her chest. “I’m going. It’s fine. I’m not gonna tell anybody.”

Peter looks over at Tony. Sees him pinching the bridge of his nose.

May holds her ground. “I don’t care if he’s the President of the United States, Tony. I am going with the two of you the first time my baby ventures out into the world after this happened to him. I am going. I’m sorry. And either way, this meet is about Peter, so he’ll be the one talking to Daredevil, and I can keep you company while the two of them talk and do whatever they’re gonna do.”

Tony glances at Peter then, and Peter shrugs, putting his own socks on. He’s got an array of new shoes that Tony got for him, and he tries to pick the coolest pair. But then he remembers that Daredevil is blind and it doesn’t matter.

“Whatever,” Tony says, rolling his eyes. “It’s fine. The women in my life have complete dominion over me and I’m fine with it.”

“That’s right,” May says.

“Happy’s gonna drive us,” Tony says. “Why don’t you stay in the car with him? You know he gets lonely.”

“Nope,” May says. “I’m going wherever Peter goes.”

It should worry Peter for the future, especially when it concerns whatever plans he may make with MJ, but he can’t help but smile at her assertiveness.

“You don’t think it’ll stop him from meeting us, right?” Peter asks. “If she comes?”

“I doubt it,” Tony says, pulling his phone out of his pocket. “He was pretty clear about seeing you no matter what after I told him about what happened.”

Peter blows out a breath, finishing putting on his socks. He drags over the new red Nikes and cracks his jaw. “Can we, uh, get Helen to change the packing and bandage one more time right now, and, uh—then in a couple days, I’ll start with the eye patch?” Fear rolls through him as he asks, but he asks anyway.

They both look up at him, a little startled. Then they exchange one of those looks they’ve been giving each other a lot lately.

“Yeah,” Tony says, quick. “Uh, May, can you call down to Helen while I give Matt a call? And let him know he’ll be meeting you too?” 

“Absolutely,” May says, her chin held high.

~

Helen changing the dressing makes Peter feel sick. It reminds him of Beck leaning over him like some lunatic nightmare surgeon, and he closes his good eye (the only fucking one he has) and tries to pretend he’s somewhere else. Not the past, so he’s technically following Sam’s rules, but some innocuous time in the future. When things aren’t so starkly horrifying. When the prospect of leaving the tower doesn’t fill him with dread. 

But she gets it done, and he tries not to get stage fright over meeting Daredevil. 

May and Tony sit on either side of him in the backseat of the car, and Peter stares out the tinted window and listens to the rage of his own heart. The hallucinations here, outside the tower, are different. Like they know he’s out, know he’s moving, and everything around him looks the slightest bit fake. Like he’s in the middle of a cartoon. Or like someone is holding a plastic bag tight over his face.

Gasping, gasping for air.

“How much further, Happy?” May asks, leaning forward and putting her hand on the back of the driver’s seat. 

“Five minutes, not even,” Happy says. “It’s just the damn traffic.”

The walls of the car twist and try to form different shapes, but it’s like something keeps stopping them, keeping them in place. 

“Where are we going?” Peter asks, glancing up at Tony.

“Uh, a place called Fogwell’s Gym,” Tony says. “Apparently Matt’s got it all empty so nobody else is gonna come in. We’ve gotta protect your identity and his, bud.”

“Yeah, we tried to pick the least interesting car,” Happy says, looking up into the rearview mirror. “But we’ve got Rhodey on standby—”

“Rhodey is on a coffee date,” Tony asserts. “A couple of blocks away from where we’re gonna be. Coincidental.”

“Coffee date with who?” Peter asks, looking at him.

Tony stares at him for a long second. “Doesn’t matter,” he says.

“Bucky,” May says. “We might as well just tell him, Tony, we’re paranoid, it’s fine, that asshole is still out there somewhere and we’re not taking any chances.”

Peter sucks in a breath and blows it out.

_WHERE AM I, PETER? I’M RIGHT HERE, HUH? I’M WITH YOU._

Peter can picture Beck shooting out the tires of their car. Trapping them in an illusion. Snatching him out from under them. He can see all that. He can see it as clearly as anything else. He cracks his jaw and pulls his phone out of his pocket, quickly typing a message out to MJ. He makes a lot more typos lately, when he does try to text, so he focuses hard. 

_Hey! Hope you’re having a good day! I hope I can see you later, you know, if you wanna come over again. I know it’s been a lot lately and yeah with everything, but I’d like to see you again. If you want._

He reads it through and hates himself, but instead of backspace, he hits send. Chills run down his arms in a sense of horror and disappointment.

“Great,” he mutters to himself.

“You alright, sweetheart?” May asks, running her fingers through his hair. 

“Yeah, just—failing at being—romantic,” Peter says, wincing against the high pitched sound going off in his ears. 

His phone buzzes and he looks down at the message that comes through from MJ. 

_I cannot believe you don’t think I wanna come over and see your face. Dumb! So dumb. My day doesn’t get good until I see you, Peter. Get on my level._

“Please,” May says. “You two are precious. It makes me cry.”

Peter’s face burns, and then Happy merges into the right lane.

“Okay, here we go,” Happy says. “I’m gonna try to pull into the alleyway so you don’t have to get out of the car in front of the whole world.”

Happy drives around back and they get out, walking to a half hidden door that opens before they can even knock. It doesn’t look like there’s anyone there, but Tony takes the lead and May follows him, keeping a firm grip on Peter’s hand. 

There’s a big boxing ring in the middle of the room, a large set of opaque windows letting in milky light. A bunch of speed bags, punching bags, fight posters on the wall. 

“Did you have a hard time finding it?” a voice asks. 

Peter turns, and sees Matt Murdock standing there. He’s wearing sunglasses, a suit and tie, though loose around his neck, and he has short cropped hair, which reminds Peter that he probably has to get his own cut. 

“Happy found it fine,” Tony says.

“Good,” Matt says, curt. He nods at Tony, almost like an afterthought, and he holds his hand out to May. “Mrs. Parker,” he says. “I’m sure Tony’s informed you.”

“Yes,” May says. “I’m sorry to impose, I just—”

“No, I completely understand,” Matt says, letting go of her hand. He shifts his attention then to Peter, and he holds out his hand to him too. He smiles, softly, unlike he did with the other two. “Peter Parker,” he says. “It’s good to meet you. I’ve heard a lot.”

Peter’s heart leaps, and he shakes his head, trying to stay cool. “I’ve—Daredevil is awesome. You’re awesome. Every time you did anything and the press got wind of it, I just—well. You’re awesome.” He lets go of Matt’s hand and hates himself _hard._

But Matt smiles again. “I can say the same about Spider-Man.” His head moves just slightly, in May’s direction. “Tony, do the two of you mind if I take him into the ring? We’re not gonna box. We’re just gonna talk.”

“Of course,” Tony says, and he claps Peter on the shoulder. May reaches out and touches Peter’s cheek, and then the two of them move to the side, over towards the window.

Matt taps Peter on the arm, motions for him to follow him. He pops up onto the tarp and holds the rope up so Peter can get under, and Peter wonders how the hell he moves like that while being completely blind. He wonders what the hell is going on. He knows they didn’t lie to him.

“Here we go,” Matt says, grabbing two fold out chairs that are leaning against the corner of the ring. He shakes them both out into shape and sits down himself, motioning for Peter to do the same. 

Peter does, and stares at him. 

“I’d been following your story after you disappeared in London,” Matt says. He has a strange way about him, that makes him feel put together and out of sorts at the same time. “I knew about you—I didn’t know you were Spider-Man until the other day, though. Tony held your identity close to his chest all these years. It’s important to him to keep you safe.”

“I know,” Peter says simply, feeling stupid. 

“I’m, uh. Sorry you had to go through what you did. Tony describes you as one of the kindest people he’s ever met, I’m just—I just wish you hadn’t gone through that.”

“Me neither,” Peter says, abruptly, because it doesn’t feel like it warrants a _thank you_ or a completely untrue _it’s okay_. “It sucked.”

Matt smiles a little bit. “Yeah,” he says. “I can imagine it did.” There’s a brief silence, and then Matt draws in a breath. He seems to be thinking about his words carefully, like he doesn’t wanna offend, but wants to get his point across. “What happened, to your eye, it doesn’t have to break you. It doesn’t have to change who you are, and it absolutely doesn’t change what you’re capable of.”

Peter chews on his lower lip, and reaches up to touch the bandage without thinking about it. He feels dumb, knowing that Matt is completely blind and Peter still has some of his own sight left, and he’s here acting like his world is falling apart. But there’s something about Matt that makes Peter want to tell him things, like he knows not just anybody gets Matt’s time, and he’s gotta make the most of it. Matt is facing him, waiting, ready to hear what he’s gotta say. 

“It—throws off my depth perception,” Peter says. “I can barely walk up stairs.”

Matt nods. “That’s part of the newness of this,” he says. “I lost my sight when I was nine years old, and in the beginning it was like I couldn’t do anything anymore. Half of that was fear. The fear of knowing its permanence. The fear of the dark, the unknown.” He sets his jaw, as if getting lost in the memory.

Peter nods, trying to imagine this happening to him when he was nine. It’s terrifying. It makes him feel sick. 

“But that’ll pass,” Matt says. “Especially for someone like you. Once you accept your situation you learn how to adapt to it.” He shifts a little bit, cracking his knuckles. “Being Spider-Man—your senses are already heightened, right?” 

“Yeah,” Peter says. “A lot.”

Matt nods. Then, in one swift movement, he gets to his feet. “Stand up,” he says. 

“Oh,” Peter says, and he quickly does it, taking a few steps away from the chair. Matt walks around behind him, and covers his remaining eye. He doesn’t press hard against his face, just lets his hand hover there so no light gets in.

“Don’t freak out,” Matt says. “I can hear your heart, just relax.”

The darkness. He can see orange through Matt’s palm—orange on the right, complete dark void on the left. He blows out a breath through his mouth. “Okay,” Peter says. Maybe freaking out, just a little bit.

“You okay?” Matt asks, his other hand on Peter’s shoulder. “Tony and your aunt are right over there.”

“I’m fine,” Peter says. He doesn’t hear Beck, or any of the rushing worlds trying to form within his own. He hears something else. 

“Alright,” Matt says. “Sight doesn’t happen in the eye, it happens in the mind, Peter. If the eyes don’t work, the brain can adapt, and get those signals elsewhere. It makes use of what the eyes aren’t using anymore, and that enhances the other senses. For someone like you, you can make up for the loss of your eye easily. You just have to know you can. As corny as it sounds, you’ve gotta believe in yourself.”

Peter stops trying to see through Matt’s hand. “I can do that,” he says. “I can totally do that.”

“I know you can,” Matt says. He turns him a little bit, away from the window, towards the back of the place that Peter didn’t really get to look at when he came in. “Alright. Now focus. Tell me what you see.”

He hears the way the air moves. How it hits the corners of the walls. The way Tony and May’s conversation lilts through the air, against the dips in the ceiling. _He’ll be fine. He looks fine. He’ll be alright—listen, I trust this guy._ He hears a poster gently flapping where it’s missing a tack in the bottom right corner. Two others that spiders live behind. He can hear the creak of a door. A chain holding a heavy bag, the sand inside shifting. The building is old, he can tell, he can hear it moving. The air conditioning is going out, he can feel the unit seizing, trying to keep going. There’s a drip hitting the top of something metal—something ticking beneath it—a watch. Inside a locker. 

His brain forms a picture, like a flash of light tracing across his mind’s eye. He sees it like two eyes. Like he can actually see again, properly.

“Um. A sand bag hanging from a chain. A set of lockers, a leak in—the back right corner. Hitting the lockers over and over. I think there’s—a watch in the lockers. Three posters. A door to a—locker room, or like a—bathroom or something.”

“Can you see it?” Matt asks. 

“Yeah,” Peter says. He’s looking. He’s looking, but he’s not looking. _Jesus._

Matt pulls his hand away and Peter blinks, his eye a little fuzzy before it clears up. But it’s all—it’s exactly as he saw it in his head. 

“That’s basically how I see,” Matt says, standing beside him, to his right. He crosses his arms over his chest, as if this is something he’s put into words more than once. “Like a—world on fire, almost. My other senses make the images up for me, they’re all working on overtime to build the world back up the way the eyes would.”

Peter laughs, shaking his head. “I knew my senses were, uh, wacked out, but I didn’t—really know they were capable of that,” he says, looking at him.

“They absolutely are,” Matt says. “Let them do the heavy lifting. They can fill in the gaps.”

Peter stares at him. Matt has insane posture, and Peter almost feels like he’s standing in the middle of this gym with a teacher. Maybe he is, sort of. Just not the typical classroom kind.

“You think I can master that?” Peter asks, hands on his hips, trying to be more straight up and down, like Matt is. “Will having one eye, like, throw it off—”

“No,” Matt says, with a stiff shake of his head. “Not at all. And you can definitely master it, especially with everything Tony’s told me about your discipline and capability. With your strength, and the suits he can make for Spider-Man—Peter, there’s no future where you can’t go on as you were. It’ll take work, for sure. Are you willing to put in the work?”

“Yeah,” Peter says. “I want—more than anything, for, uh—to be able to do what I used to do.”

Matt looks at him for a long moment, and Peter wonders how he sees him. In his head. “It’s hard to picture it for you, isn’t it?” he asks. “Yourself, uh—doing what you can do. No matter how much you imagine it, knowing your disability now, you can’t see yourself being that guy again. Right?”

Peter feels a little ashamed, but he’s right. “I want to,” he says. 

Matt nods. “People look at me, like this, and they’d never imagine what I’m capable of. And I know, right now, you’re looking at me and you’re seeing—me. Not Daredevil. The outfit really—pulls it all together.”

Peter’s face goes hot. “No, I—”

“Don’t worry, Peter, it doesn’t bother me,” Matt says, patting him on the arm with the back of his hand. He clears his throat. “Tony!”

Peter glances over, and sees Tony turn around fast. 

“Yes?” Tony asks, anxiety lining his voice. He looks at Peter, looks him up and down like he thought something happened, and when he realizes he’s fine his eyes find Matt. “What’s wrong?”

“Come up here real quick,” Matt says, motioning him over.

Tony exchanges a look with May as Matt sweeps the chairs aside, leaning them back where they were to begin with. Tony gets up into the ring, glancing back and forth between them.

“Just so you know, I am not boxing my kid,” Tony says. “He’s knocked the shit out of me before, I’m not about that life today.”

Peter shakes his head. “That was one time, and you kept amping me up!”

“Excuses,” Tony says, but then he winks at him.

“Not him,” Matt says, walking around Peter and standing opposite Tony. “Me.”

Maybe Peter’s mouth falls open a little bit.

Tony raises his eyebrows. “You’re wearing a suit.”

“I have a deposition later,” Matt says, with a shrug. He bounces a bit, and for a second, he really does look like a fighter. “You alright on your feet? Should I ask his aunt instead?”

May laughs like she’s in a comedy club. Peter covers his mouth at the look on Tony’s face, and he backs up so he’s against the ropes. 

“Alright, Matty,” Tony says, putting his hands up. “What are we looking at here?”

“Just throw some punches, nothing fancy,” Matt says, just standing there, facing him. “Just try and hit me.” He takes his glasses off for the first time, slipping them into his pocket.

Tony winces. “Jesus, I know you’re Daredevil, but—”

“C’mon, it’s beat up the blind guy time,” Matt says, and he grins.

Tony rolls his eyes. “Fine.”

Peter knows Tony is a good fighter. They’ve trained together about a thousand times, boxed and sparred on more than one occasion, and the first punch he throws is essentially perfect form. 

Matt immediately dodges out of the way, slipping to the side like it’s nothing. 

Tony narrows his eyes. “Alright,” he says, cocking his head. “Alright, I see how it is, Mr. Daredevil.”

Matt shoots him a grin, and Tony scoffs. He surges forward again, this time winding up an uppercut, but Matt parries and moves to his left, dodging around Peter and towards the other side of the ring. Tony tries to slip and move, tries to trip him up, and when he steps forward with another jab, Matt rolls right underneath him and through his legs.

“Jesus Christ,” Tony says, trying to turn around quickly. He throws a cross and then a hook, but Matt dodges them both, and Tony tries to get off two jabs, but Matt slips underneath his arm both times, moving in a perfect arc. His movements are graceful, but powerful at the same time. Then, within the blink of an eye, he takes two wide steps, bounces off the rope and flips over Tony’s head. High over his head and into the air, two spins.

“Holy shit!” Peter yells, as Matt lands in the far corner. 

“Okay,” Tony says, taking a few lethargic steps forward. “Yeah, that’s—I’m too old for this. This is why I cover myself in armor. Friday makes all my decisions.”

“And you just saved the world,” Matt says, walking over and patting him on the shoulder. “We’ll have a rematch when you’re back in top form.”

“My top form and your top form are very different,” Tony says, shaking his head. He walks over to the edge, taking May’s hand as he stumbles out of the ring. 

“How about you, now?” Matt asks, approaching Peter.

Peter is still standing there in shock, and he blinks at him, refocusing. “What?”

“No sparring,” Matt says, eyes looking a little past him. “But I know Spider-Man can do all kinds of flips. My friend Foggy is a big fan of your acrobatics.”

Peter swallows hard, feeling his excitement dim slightly. “I, uh—I haven’t done anything like that since I got back.”

Matt shakes his head. “I’ll spot you,” he says. He nods towards the middle of the ring. “I won’t let you fall.”

Peter looks at him, chewing on the inside of his cheek. “Okay,” he says, trying to gather up the strength that’s still somewhere inside of him. He follows Matt to the middle of the ring and he stands there for a second, trying not to panic. He doesn’t look over at Tony and May, he doesn’t trust himself not to be swayed by their expressions. He tries not to fall into another world, because there are plenty of them waiting to open up and swallow him whole. 

Peter’s here. In the present. Moving forward.

But he remembers children’s voices, asking him to do a flip. They always stand and cheer when he does, like it’s the best thing he can possibly do. 

He looks at Matt and Matt nods at him. Standing stalwart.

He tries not to think. He just bends his knees, closes his eyes, and knows Daredevil won’t allow him to fall on his face. His breath catches a bit when he launches himself into the air, and he tucks his knees up, spinning around once before he plants his feet on the ground. It isn’t the cleanest landing and he hovers back a bit, leaning back into Matt’s grasp, but he’s not in a heap on the ground. He’s standing. He did a fucking _flip._

“Hey!” Tony says. “Look at that!”

“Peter!” May exclaims.

“There we go,” Matt says, grinning. “See? I knew you could. No doubts.”

Peter laughs, filled up with the kind of joy he didn’t think he could truly possess anymore—the joy of being the person he was before. He laughs again, louder this time, and he launches himself at Matt without thinking about it, wrapping him up in a hug. 

“Oh, hey,” Matt says, patting him on the back. “Hey, wow.”

Peter holds him tight, squeezing his eye shut. He lifts him up a bit without meaning to, and Matt lets out a surprised sound, gripping his shoulders.

“Kid! Whoa, hey—that’s—wow.”

“Thank you,” Peter whispers, putting him back down. “Thank you so much.”

~

He’s exhausted after their meeting, whether it’s the whole going out into the world for the first time or meeting one of his idols, but he crashes with a degree of hope for his future that Matt instilled in him. At first, the sleep is calm, relaxing, and without fear. But once he finally falls into it—real and deep—his mind betrays him.

_Peter is screaming. The pain shoots through his body, stemming from the newly broken leg, and he nearly blacks out under the extent of it. He tries to wrestle his wrists out of the handcuffs, cuts into his skin yanking his arms back and forth._

_Beck drops his mallet down to the ground and scoffs at him. “Buddy, pal, you should be happy for these days. You get to just lay around for a day and a half or so while you heal up. I can’t mess with you! Well. Not really.” He smirks at him, running a hand through his hair. He looks wild now, more than he did when Peter first met him. There are no more pretenses._

_Last time he broke his legs he waterboarded him, too. So he’s just a fucking liar._

_Peter is a few minutes away from passing out, he can tell. Beck almost got a little sloppy this time, and Peter thinks a limp might accompany him once he’s back on his feet._

_He wonders if they’ll ever find his body. He wonders if Beck will ever let him die._

_“Why the hell are you doing this?” Peter asks, blinking slowly, wincing as the pain eats away at him. “For real. For real.”_

_Beck walks back over and leans on the gurney. “Because,” he says. “Just imagining the pain Tony’s in right now is enough. And, baby boy, if you kill him in my fucking illusion, I’ll let you go. Right away. That’s all you need to do.”_

_Peter closes his eyes. “No,” he says. “I won’t.”_

_“He’s not even fucking real in the illusions, you moron, it’s not a voodoo doll.”_

_“I won’t do it,” Peter says, breathing hard through his mouth._

_“Well,” Beck says, after a long moment. “I guess we’ll have plenty of time to get to know each other.” And with that, he grabs Peter’s head with both hands, slamming it back down on the gurney._

_He does it three times before Peter passes out._

Peter sucks in a breath, shooting up in bed.

And he can’t see. He can’t see.

He’s got the darkness on his left side, the pure blackness that he’s still not used to, but the other side is—fuzzy. Unclear.

He reaches up, rubbing at his eye, his heart beating straight out of his chest. But it doesn’t fix it. Nothing is clear, nothing—he can barely see the outline of his fucking room. And no one’s in here, because they’d be losing it right along with him.

Peter breathes hard, struggling over to the side of the bed, and his blankets wrap around his legs and nearly pull him to the floor.

“May!” he yells, kicking the sheets away from him. He stumbles to the side and finds his dresser before he can collapse, and he feels himself knock something over. “Fuck, fuck.” But it doesn’t hit the ground, he doesn’t hear it, and despite his panic, he tries to focus on what Matt said. 

His other senses. He still has them. They’re all stronger.

But is he going blind? Is it just how hard he slept? He rubs at his eye again but it still doesn’t clear up, and he’s close to tears. “May!” he yells. “May, Tony!”

He breathes hard, and no one comes. Is this part of the nightmare? Is he actually awake?

Is he going _fucking blind?_

He feels around for the bathroom door, and then a flood of light rushes into the room. Even that is like a halo, ringlets surrounding it in hazy orange, and Peter scrubs at his eye again.

“Kid?” Rhodey’s voice asks. “Hey, you’re awake—”

“I can’t see,” Peter says, voice shaking. “My good eye, it’s—it’s all fuzzy—”

“Okay, okay, stay right there,” Rhodey says, not missing a beat. “It’s alright. You just woke up wrong.” Peter sees the form of him walk over to where the lamp is, and then the room lights up more, but still like a foggy morning, nothing taking real shape. 

Rhodey walks back over to him and takes his arm. “This shit happens to me all the time when I sleep in one position,” he says, leading him into the bathroom. He flips the lights on in there too, and stops Peter in front of what looks like the sink. “Lean down.”

Peter does, resting his forearms on the counter. He hears the sink running, and Rhodey starts to gently splash water into his eye. 

“Sorry, sorry,” Rhodey says, when Peter winces.

“No, it’s—it’s okay,” Peter says. He reaches up and rubs the water in, and blinks a few times.

“World coming back into focus?” Rhodey asks, hand resting on Peter’s back.

Peter splashes a little bit more water, and rubs his eye harder. Finally, the chrome of the sink, the designs on the counter, his red toothbrush, the two of them in the mirror—all get clear. Peter sighs, his shoulders sinking. “Yeah,” he says. “God, I’m sorry.”

“No, don’t be,” Rhodey says. “I’m not even lying when I say it happens at least three times a week to me. I can imagine what it’s like for you.”

“With one good eye,” Peter says, straightening up. “Yeah.”

“You alright?” Rhodey asks, looking at him hard.

“Yeah,” Peter says, trying not to be too embarrassed. “Thanks, Mr. Rhodes.”

Rhodey scoffs at him. “Stop with that. C’mon, May and Tony are making spaghetti and arguing about it the whole damn way.”

Peter follows him, and refuses to think about his dream. Or Beck at all.

But Beck follows, laughing. 

~

Two days later, after a flurry of kisses and a million promises, May leaves. She says it’s something with her job, something at the hospital, and Peter knows that if she’s leaving him it has to be something serious. He doesn’t ask, he just holds on for an extra couple seconds before she goes, and he feels the loss immediately. A void, like the one in his skull, another opening for the memories and the hallucinations to flare up and dive down his throat. 

Matt said Peter could call him if he needed to, could text if he didn’t wanna call, because he’d mastered Siri reading the texts out loud and even picked his own voice for it. But Peter can barely stop himself from feeling like an imposition to his own family, let alone fucking Daredevil, so he stares at his number instead until the inclination passes. 

He grabs the box he made with Sam. Eats too many Twix bars. Stares at the group of old photographs until he has them memorized. 

_LOOK AT YOUR LITTLE BOX. YOU ARE SO SWEET, PETEY PIE. _

Tony types away in the easy chair, pecking at the keyboard with two fingers. 

“Happy’s grabbing MJ but Ned is gonna have to be later,” Tony says, abruptly. “His mother’s car broke down with him in it in the goddamn Financial District. Don’t worry, I’ve got someone on it, but they’re ages away.”

“It’s okay,” Peter says, eager to see MJ. He has to swallow down his guilt every time he sees her, every time he so much as thinks about her, and the cuts and bruises still aren’t completely gone. He clenches his own hands and tries not to imagine them as weapons, tries not to remember Beck holding them up by his face in a weighted down guard and saying _if you don’t fucking hit me, I’ll burn you again. _

“I feel bad about Happy having to drive everywhere for me and my friends,” Peter says, trying to distract himself. There’s a heartbeat pounding in the walls that doesn’t belong to him or Tony. Like Beck doing his best Edgar Allen Poe. 

“He doesn’t care, bud,” Tony says. He types a few more things, and Peter wonders what he’s working on. Then he wonders what the hell day it is. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t remember. He can’t latch onto time. 

_IT DOESN’T MATTER, DOES IT? YOU’RE ON MY TIME._

He hears that over and over. 

“Uh, Morgan wanted to do a taco bar for you tonight,” Tony says. “How’s that sound?” 

“Good,” Peter says, smiling. That reminds him of the past. Pepper would always set up the best taco bars, and Peter would go down the line with Morgan on his shoulders and have her pick out what she wanted on her soft shell. “Really good.”

That seems to get Tony’s attention and he looks up over his laptop screen. “Hot sauce,” he says. “You still game for the Hardy Habanero? Or the Saucy Sriracha?”

Now that _really_ transports him back to those eight months before his tragic choice to go to Europe. “Cholula,” he says. 

“Ah, yes,” Tony says, closing his laptop. “We’re in for it now.” 

~

MJ doesn’t allow him to wallow in his guilt. When she sees him shrinking from her, she follows. When she catches him focusing too hard on the cut he left her with, she covers it with her hand, leaning in and grinning at him. They walk around the outside of the floor for exercise, and she guides him up and down the stairs after he tells her about the stairmaster problem. He trips, more than one time, but she holds onto his hands, tapping the next step with her foot so he can try and determine exactly where it is. 

Maybe he’s having a heart attack. Or maybe he might love her. 

She threads their fingers together as they head towards the kitchen, and he sees what he’s been seeing a lot more often in the past couple days—Vulture wings. Like the tail end of them, the mechanical shift whenever he swoops past, and of course, Beck’s laughter. 

“There’s nothing there,” MJ says, squeezing his hand. “Right over there, where you’re looking? Nothing. We’re totally fine.”

It might make him nervous if it wasn’t her saying that, if it wasn’t her or May or Tony. But since it’s her, it calms him, it settles in his head, because she always tells the truth, she never lies to him. Everything about her screams real. Screams right now. Screams _you’re safe. You made it. She’s here._

“Okay, good,” he says, smiling a little bit. “Thought I was seeing things.”

She looks at him with wide eyes, and he manages a laugh. 

“It’s okay, I can make fun of myself,” Peter says. 

“Wow, Peter,” she says, giving him a very particular look. 

He wants to be normal for her so, so badly.

They grab Doritos from the kitchen and head back towards his room, and Peter sees Happy sitting in the living room, working on something on a laptop like Tony was earlier. Which immediately makes Peter wonder where Tony is. He hasn’t seen him in about an hour now—he and May have been trying to give him space when it comes to MJ, which would be fine if things were normal. But things aren’t really normal at all. As much as he wants them to be.

May isn’t back. And Tony isn’t within eyesight.

“You need to put a hoodie on,” MJ says, rubbing his arm up and down. “Still get so cold.”

_FREEZING? GOOD._

Peter swallows hard. “Yeah, I will when we get back into the room,” he says, eyeing Happy.

Happy notices, looks like he’s been caught doing something wrong. “Hey, Morgan and Pepper are gonna be a little later tonight than they were hoping, but taco bar is still on, repeat, taco bar is still on. And I’m gonna go grab Ned once the mechanic gets things done.”

There are little pinpricks rolling through Peter’s head, and he reaches up with his free hand and picks at the bandage a bit. “Where’s Tony?” he asks. “And, uh, and May?”

Peter can literally hear Happy’s heart pick up. “Uh, he had to run out real quick, but he’ll be back soon,” he says. “May’s still dealing with work, but she will also be back soon. Like, super soon. And I’m right here if anybody—meaning you—needs me. And Rhodey’s doing road work about a mile away, the other guys are spread around New York but they can all be here in like, five minutes—I mean, longer than that—”

“I’ve got him,” MJ says, holding onto Peter’s hand still and also gripping his elbow. “It’s okay.”

Peter looks at her, and feels his heart flutter a little bit.

“Good,” Happy says, with a sigh. “You’ve got him.”

She tugs him back towards his room and Peter watches her, starry-eyed, glad she’s on his right side. “You’ve got me?” he asks, tentatively. 

“Don’t I?” she asks, kicking the door open gently once they reach it. She looks down at their hands, and smiles a little bit. “Huh, you know, it looks like I do.”

She puts a hoodie on him, the red one he’s been favoring lately. They play the PS6 a little bit. They eat too many Doritos. She plays with his fingers and once again, he feels like he’s having a heart attack. But then his mind starts to drift—to where May and Tony are. He hates that his attention is traveling anywhere while she’s with him, but he sees the storm coming in the corner of the room. He can hear Beck’s nails scraping against the walls. She’s got him, but he’s losing her. There’s still too much fear streaming in his veins. 

“I’m, uh,” he says, in a moment of silence, “maybe starting to—freak out. A little bit. Maybe sitting at the beginning of a freakout.”

She shifts beside him, sitting up on her elbow. “Talk to me. You know you can tell me anything.”

He blows out a breath. “I, uh, God, it sucks, but I hear him all the time,” Peter says, shaking his head. The storm swirls in the corner of the room, and it reminds him of the illusions. Reminds him of the burning car. The blood in his mouth. Cut after cut after cut, up and down his arm. 

_LOOK, IT’S LIKE A PRISON WALL ON YOUR ARM HERE. MAYBE I SHOULD DO ONE FOR EVERY DAY YOU’VE BEEN HERE? AND EVERY DAY YOU WILL BE?_

“Remember what Sam says,” MJ says. “Beck isn’t here, in any shape or form. He’s not in the room, and whatever you hear in your head isn’t real either. He isn’t part of your present or your future. So when you hear it—think of the mantra Tony gave you. Or a song. Blast a song so loud in your head that you can’t hear him talking.”

_“Why do you build me up—buttercup, baby, just to let me down—”_

“That’s a good idea,” Peter says, but he feels like right now, he’s too far gone. He reaches up and wipes at his eye. “Sorry, I—sorry.”

_YOU’RE NOT FUCKING GONNA WORK IN A RELATIONSHIP, PETER. YOU’RE TOO FUCKING FUCKED UP._

“Don’t be sorry,” MJ says. “Peter, honestly. Don’t be.”

“I hate being like this, especially around you,” he says, not looking at her. “And I know you’ve said it’s fine, and you want me anyway, but I just—I wasn’t sure about why you’d like me before all this and I just can’t turn my stupid brain off.”

“Your brain isn’t stupid,” she says, holding his arm. “I like your brain.”

He glances back at her then, and just can’t believe it. “I’m gonna be messed up forever, I think,” he says, in not much more than a whisper. “I don’t know how the hell I’m gonna finish up school.”

“You’re not gonna be messed up forever because you’re not messed up,” she says. “You’re coping. Some people, if they’d gone through what you did? Would just give up. Break down. Won’t try anymore. Lash out at everybody and push them away. But you’re not, you’re working on it, you’re moving forward.”

“Tony and May aren’t here right now,” Peter says. “And despite wanting—every single second of alone time that I can get with you—I’m combusting on the inside. I’m just—losing it, not knowing where they are.”

“It’s _fine_,” she says. “They’re your parents. If I had gone through what you did I’d still be holding my mom’s hand. I wouldn’t allow her to go anywhere, Peter, I’d be following her into the bathroom. You don’t know how well you’re doing because you only compare yourself to you. You gotta look at everybody else and just how well you’re doing. You’re allowed to feel safer when they’re around. Completely normal. Tony’s Iron Man, I mean, I’d love to have him protecting me. I’d love to have like seventeen Iron Men surrounding me at all times so people would just leave me alone.”

Peter blows out a breath. She’s the prettiest girl in the world. All he wants to do is look at her, listen to her, pretend nothing is happening that’s happening in his gut, in his head, all around him with the false world that’s trying to bleed into his own.

“MJ,” he says, closing his eye. “You’re just—”

His phone buzzes. Three times in a row. His brow furrows and he shifts onto his side slightly, pulling it out of his pocket.

It’s the news app. The one he reactivated after the press conference. 

All three notifications are about Tony. 

All three are about the same thing. 

Tony, at May’s hospital. Tony, getting arrested. Tony, yelling, two policemen dragging him away from at least three doctors grouped together. May, off to the side, yelling too, another cop standing in front of her and pointing a finger in her face.

Tony, getting arrested. Hands behind his back, in handcuffs. 

_OH, PETEY, I WONDER HOW LONG HE’LL BE IN JAIL FOR! I WONDER WHAT HE DID! HE’S GONE NOW! THEY’LL PROBABLY TAKE HER TOO!_

MJ takes the phone from him and clicks it closed. 

Peter’s breath is coming fast, and he shakes so hard he feels like he’s about to have a seizure.

“Peter,” MJ says. 

He reaches up, covering his face with both hands.

“Peter,” MJ says again, touching his shoulder. 

He hears rushing, high winds. Smashing metal. Screeching tires. A raging fire.

The door swings open.

“Peter, I know you must have seen it,” Happy says. “I’m gonna go down to the police station now, meet Pepper and Morgan, I don’t know who the fuck they are arresting Tony Stark—”

“What happened?” Peter wails, pulling his hands away. He feels frozen. Like his legs don’t work. The walls are peeling away.

“They were threatening May’s job, that’s why he went down there,” Happy says, like he doesn’t want to. “They were trying to fire her for all the time she’s been out, and he thought he could help, but it looks like—that went bad, but I’m going down there right now, Bucky and Sam are heading back here for you—”

“I’ve got him,” MJ asserts. “Go, go get Tony and May and get back here as soon as you can. I’ve got him.”

“Okay,” Happy says. “Fast. Right now.”

He leaves the door open, and Peter can hear him rushing down the hallway. 

Peter’s eye rolls back and he focuses on the ceiling. He sees the warehouse up there. Like an upside down room. His own self, strapped down. He’s struggling, because Beck has the towel over his face, and he’s pouring bottle after bottle after bottle straight onto his nose and mouth. 

He closes his eye. “Okay, now I’m. Now I’m. Yeah, I’m freaking out.”

“Shh, this will be resolved real fast, he’s Tony, he’s Tony,” MJ says, rubbing Peter’s arm up and down.

“May’s job, too,” Peter says, his world spinning and spinning. “She said—she said before that if—if she lost her job, we’d—we’d be in trouble—”

“I’m sure that was before Tony, right?” MJ asks, softly. “He could support you two a million times over. And he’d never do anything less. He _loves_ you, Peter. And May’s his partner in crime. Practically his second wife.”

Peter scoffs, shaking his head.

“Look at me,” MJ says. “Look at me. Open your eye and look at me.”

Her voice grounds. The way she says it. Brings him rocketing back down to earth. He opens his eye and she’s so close to his face that he goes completely still. 

She reaches up, cupping his cheek. “You’re right here. You’re right here with me. Don’t think about anything else, okay? They’ll be back. Soon. Fast. Okay? You’re with me. I’ve got you. Say it.”

His heart hammers in his ears. “Say—”

“Say ‘you’ve got me’.” She’s looking at him intently. She brushes her thumb back and forth over his cheekbone. 

“You’ve got me,” he says, the rest of the world fading away. But he isn’t scared, because it shines a spotlight on her head. 

There’s a beat of loaded silence.

“Peter, can I—can I kiss you?” she asks, softly. She breathes through her mouth, her breath hitting his lips.

_Oh my God._

He’s wanted to kiss her for so long. What feels like forever. He dreamed about it, on the school trip. He’d planned and planned and planned until he knew every step of his fantasy scenarios. And then it all happened. And then Beck harped on it, over and over and over again. But when Peter did get to sleep, he imagined. Even when he was beyond all hope, planning to die, knowing for a full and solid fact that he’d never see the sun again—he dreamed of her. A life where she was his girlfriend. Where he made her laugh and held her hand. Where she kissed him.

He nods, so slowly that he isn’t positive he actually does it. And she stares at him, for long enough that he thinks the whole moment is gonna end, stop, eject—but then she leans in and kisses him.

Her lips are soft, and they press gently against his, and the kiss breaks before he fully processes it. But then another one starts, a little more open-mouthed, a little deeper, and he closes his eye as she pulls him closer. He tangles his hand in her hair, and knows her fingers are dipping down to press against the rapid pulse in his throat. Their noses bump against each other as she moves into a third kiss, and he hears her draw in a breath through her nose. She makes a little noise into his mouth and he just about passes out.

They break apart after that, and he slowly opens his eye, afraid of how the world will be warped. But it’s normal. It’s just her. 

“Are you okay?” she asks. 

“Yeah,” he says, slowly. His fears try to sneak back up, but he pushes them down. It’ll be okay. If she actually wants to kiss him, it’ll be okay. “Uh, will you. Will you, uh, be my—my—”

“Yes,” she says. “Yes. Girlfriend. Yours. Yes.”

He can’t hear anything else. It’ll all be fine. He can’t wait to tell Tony and May when they get home.

~

They give Tony his jacket, his keys, his phone and his fucking wallet, and he heads out to the front of the station, where May, Pepper, Happy and Morgan are waiting for him. He’d expected press, but thankfully there’s no one there but his family.

“Daddy!” Morgan yells, rushing down the hallway when he’s beyond the yellow line.

He catches her when she lunges for him, lifting her up and into his arms. He gives Pepper a look, and she immediately shoots one back at him.

“She was already with me, babe,” Pepper says. 

“So who are we gonna sue?” Happy says, loudly, eyes darting around to the many cops roaming in this god forsaken place. “Who’s War Machine gotta _battle_, huh?”

“Oh, is Rhodey heading my fights up for me?” Tony asks. 

He glances down at May and sighs. He let his emotions get the better of him. But they were firing her—they had already done it, they had the fucking nerve to say she wouldn’t be back on the schedule, even after she’d started to explain what happened to Peter. And that—he understood her saying so, but if anyone had been listening, they could connect the dots between Spider-Man’s kidnapping and Peter’s. And if Beck and his cohorts had been nearby—they’d see that Peter was without Tony. It only takes a few more thought processes before the conclusion that he’s at the tower. 

Tony lost it. Like when he punched the wall. He lost his shit. Just the idea of them firing May, after what she’s been dealing with. After they _knew._

Tony sets his jaw and shakes his head, holding Morgan close. 

“This is how you know we’re family,” Tony says, looking down at May. “I haven’t been arrested in—a very long time.”

“This is gonna go away,” May says, shaking her head. “You didn’t even do anything. People yell all the time in the hospital. They overreacted because you’re so intimidating.”

Tony scoffs as they move towards the door, Happy still glancing around like he’s trying to start a fight. “Yeah, sure. Me.”

“He’s a puppy dog,” Pepper says, reaching up and pinching his cheek. She pushes the door open, and once again, Tony worries about press. But there isn’t anybody there, which goes to show the full extent of Pepper’s power. 

“Morgan, what kind of dog is daddy?” Tony asks.

“A Rottweiler,” Morgan says, laying her head on his shoulder. 

“That’s right,” Tony says, heading out into the setting sun, still glancing around for flashing cameras. “Hey, Hap. How’s Pete, huh?”

They all start to cross the street to the parking lot, and Tony’s glad they parked legally as opposed to getting five or six tickets on the car. 

“He wasn’t the best when I left,” Happy says. “He’s with his girl, I called Bucky and Sam to head back to the tower. But he saw the video, because it’s—all over the internet.”

“Great,” Tony sighs, his heart dipping. He looks over at Pepper.

“Yeah, won’t be for long,” she says. 

“Love of my life,” Tony sing-songs, as they reach the car. 

“Love you,” Pepper replies. “Despite your criminal record.”

Tony shakes his head. He gets into the back with May, and situates Morgan between them. She hums, leaning against Tony’s side. 

“I’m so sorry, Tony,” May says. She reaches up, running her hand through her hair. “I just—I wouldn’t go back there anyway, after how they treated you. I’ve been thinking about moving for a while and this is it.”

“May, you don’t have to work another day in your life if you don’t want to,” Tony says, wrapping an arm around Morgan. “Pete _never_ has to work.”

“I’m just sorry,” May says. 

“Don’t be,” Tony says. “You’re as bad as him. It’s over, it’s done with, I talked to a very nice meth dealer—couldn’t give him the autograph he wanted, but I told him next time.”

“Don’t talk about meth in front of Morgan,” Pepper says, from the front seat.

“Meth,” Morgan says, snuggling closer to Tony.

May snorts, shaking her head. He knows she’s anxious to get back to the tower, and he is too. He wants to forget all of this shit. He needs to calm the fuck down. Peter needs someone who maintains his composure.

Happy pulls up to a red light, and the whole car seems to sigh. May glances over at Tony, and she seems anxious.

“What’s wrong?” Tony asks. “Don’t tell me there’s another place I gotta go get arrested.”

She shakes her head. “Before all this insanity happened, I—was thinking, and it just hit me. We haven’t even really been keeping track of time, but I just realized. His birthday is next week.”

That. Sort of makes Tony’s brain explode. Both Pepper and Happy turn around, looking at them, and Morgan peers up too.

“Petey’s birthday,” she says. “Daddy.”

“I know,” Tony says, drifting. “I heard her.” The car behind them honks and startles Happy into driving again. Jesus, Peter is gonna be eighteen. Peter is gonna be eighteen, that’s supposed to be one of the best birthdays and yet—he’s in the midst of all this. Tony doesn’t know what the hell they should do. Whether they should keep it small, not do anything at all, risk something bigger. He has no idea. None.

“Yeah,” May says, like she’s reading his mind. “I don’t know either.”

~

Tony heads directly up to Peter’s quarters once they get back, while Pepper, Morgan and Happy break off to start the taco bar, Happy awaiting the go-ahead from Ned.

Bucky and Sam are sitting in the living room, and they glance up when Tony and May go by.

“He’s fine!” Sam yells. “Completely, Mr. Jailbird.”

Tony snorts. “Please.”

“But he’s really fine,” Bucky adds on, and Tony notices he’s eating a bowl of ice cream. “We haven’t even had to do anything. Michelle is—something. She’s really smart and she—she cares about your kid, May.”

May briefly looks at Tony, her eyes watery.

“Don’t start crying,” Tony says, as they head towards the room.

“I just love him having a girlfriend,” she says, wiping at her eyes. “It’s the sweetest thing.”

“Thank God she’s someone we can trust,” Tony says. They gently open Peter’s door, and find him curled up with Michelle in the middle of the bed. His face is pressed up into her neck, his arms around her middle, and she’s holding him possessively, her fingers in his hair and her slender arm draped around his back.

May lets out a little sob, trying to stifle it, and she leans into Tony. He wraps his arm around her shoulders, emotions swelling in his own chest.

“He’s gonna be okay, I think,” May says. “It’s gonna be hard, but I think—he’s gonna be okay.”

It’s worth it, getting negligently arrested, to come home to this. Peter, peaceful. With someone who loves him. “Yeah,” Tony says. “He will. I know he will.”


	6. headed in the right direction

Peter wakes up still inside his nightmare.

Like the illusion is following him.

May’s in the bed with him and Tony is in the easy chair, his phone shining in his hand. They’re both dead asleep. Peter stares, because they phase in and out of their places, and the warehouse superimposes itself on top of everything, like an acidic stamp, wearing and boiling with age. 

_TOMORROW I’LL TAKE THE OTHER ONE. TOMORROW, OKAY? STOP SCREAMING. STOP SCREAMING, PETER, I’M NOT GONNA DO IT TODAY._

He can feel the handcuffs.

Beck tosses him against the wall. Peter grabs his wrist, bites him. Draws blood. Peter felt insane, then. He laughed, at the way Beck screeched, toppling backwards. But then he wasn’t screaming. Then he was punching Peter in the mouth and saying he was gonna yank his teeth out.

But he didn’t do that.

Peter’s in the hallway. He doesn’t know how he got there, he doesn’t remember getting out of bed. His feet feel like they’re not part of his body, and he sees them moving against the wood grain and tile but he can feel the hard cement of the warehouse too. Sees the blood between his toes. Beck broke them indiscriminately because they healed back so fast. 

Peter’s in the elevator. His mind is trapped—the nightmare is like an illusion, the kind Beck would wrap him in, like a straitjacket. He leans back against the wall, trembling, and reaches up, covering his good eye.

He tries to hear the voices of his present—Sam, Matt—but Beck’s voice is big, taking up all the real estate. He enunciates. He screeches like a fucking air horn.

Peter shuffles out of the elevator and he hears the high pitch, he hears Beck screaming, he hears the dripping and Beck’s steel-toed shoes. He hears the radiator.

He hears he hears he hears—

He’s wading through his own wallowing, his own grief, the gashes Beck left in his arms, the abhorrent silences, the shallow pits of his eyes. When he had two eyes, and now his life is split, struck right down the middle, a great barrier between normal and changed. Two eyes, then one. When he was stolen. 

He might not have come back. There, then gone, remaining lost. A smiling face in a photograph. Hidden pain only imagined by those who love him. They never would have known the full extent. Missing posters. Press conferences. A decomposing body no one would ever get to bury.

Peter is on the roof.

Escape. 

Get to the roof.

He’ll find you there, he’ll find you there.

He’d heard his own voice in his head, he heard May’s voice, Tony’s, MJ’s, Ned’s, Ben’s. His parents, beyond the grave, begging him to get to the tower. He had broken webshooters. A broken heart. Blood and blood and blood. No one saw him. They looked right through him, and he wondered as he traversed the streets if he was dead already. If he was a ghost, if he’d get there and they wouldn’t see him. Because he was gone, because Beck took his life from him too.

But they saw him. They saw him.

He’s almost back now, seeing the new morning, the light orange and pink draping across the sky, and the wind whips around up here because he’s so high up. But he’s still hypnotized by the nightmare—it clings to him, keeps him moving—drip, drip, drip. Souls and souls passing him by.

_Lost, I’m lost._

_I FOUND YOU, I FOUND YOU. YOU’RE MINE._

Him. In all his psychopathy. Wild eyes, and grinning. A jackal. 

Peter is led to the edge by invisible string, and he remembers crawling up, crawling, slipping, not so sticky but sticky enough, but now he’s moving, moving, and he can see himself toppling, like a fallen satellite. A splatter on the pavement. A cry in the dark.

He’s screaming on the inside. _Stop walking, stop. Break out. Wake up._

Beck is living inside his head. Slicing away at his eye socket. 

“Peter!” Tony’s voice yells. “Peter!”

Peter blinks, closing his eye, and then he’s being tugged backwards, away from the edge, back to earth. Startled. Shocked. Awake. 

He’s freezing. Struck by horror as Tony pulls him into his arms and clings to him. Peter sobs, clutching at him. 

“I’ve got you,” Tony says. “You’re okay.”

Peter’s legs slip out from underneath him in his panic, and he closes his eye tight as Tony keeps him upright. 

“Listen,” Tony whispers, rubbing Peter’s back. “Listen. I’ve got you. You’re Peter Benjamin Parker. You’re Spider-Man. You’re strong, you’re capable, you’re safe and you are loved. You hear me? I’ve got you. We’re okay.”

Peter nods, still crying, trying to breathe. “I don’t know what—what happened—I was—I don’t know what my head was doing—it’s like I was asleep but—awake but not—” It scares him to fucking talk about it. It scares him that it happened. He’s only barely coming back to himself now, and he buries his face in Tony’s shoulder. “Oh my God.”

“Shhh, I’ve got you,” Tony says again. He grips the back of Peter’s neck, and he doesn’t move, and they just stand there while Peter tries to be a person again. This isn’t like his violent trigger word outburst—he remembers it, he was aware, and he just kept going. His head fucking hurts. As soon as Tony grabbed him, he realized—it was really like a trance, one that grew in the nightmare and held him tight when he woke up.

He’s so fucked up. He’s so goddamn fucked. 

Tony pulls back, brushes Peter’s hair back from his forehead. Peter’s sweating but he still feels like he’s inside an ice box, and he wonders if that will ever fucking stop. 

“What if you hadn’t woken up in time?” Peter asks, swallowing hard over a lump in his throat. “Jesus, Tony, this isn’t—that wasn’t even Beck. That was just me.”

“That’s why May and I are staying close,” Tony says, shaking his head at him. “Okay? You’re making a ton of progress but—”

“I know it takes time,” Peter says, his head pounding, and he crosses his arms over his chest. “Shit, what the hell else are we gonna find out about me? And how far down the road? How much progress am I gonna make before I drown myself because I can’t wake up properly?”

Tony narrows his eyes. “Peter.”

Peter reaches up, digging his fingers into his good eye. His heart is beating too fast. This is just another fucking thing he can’t deal with. 

“Let’s go back inside,” Tony says, wrapping his arm around Peter’s shoulders. “C’mon. Let’s get off the roof.”

Peter chews on the inside of his cheek and follows him back inside, trying not to get too deep in his own head. The place he made for himself there doesn’t feel safe anymore. Nothing about him feels safe. 

_A MESS, PETER. WHAT DID I SAY? YOU DON’T EVEN WANT YOURSELF._

Tony holds the door open for him, and Peter walks inside, two seconds from an all-out breakdown. It comes on time, all consuming, a wave, grief for himself as if he’s already dead. This is just purgatory.

He turns and presses his forehead against the wall at the top of the stairs, his face crumpling up with a new round of crying.

“Peter,” Tony says, behind him, a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m not making progress,” Peter whispers. “Not really. No matter how many times we say it, it’s not—it’s not true.”

“It is true,” Tony says. “You came back and you weren’t speaking.”

“That was fear. Shock.”

“We could still be there,” Tony says. “But we’re not. You’re seeing people other than May and me. You and Sam, you’re doing great with him. And Matt, he loves you, and that guy doesn’t love anybody. You’re dating your girl. You helped us make the pizza last night.”

Peter scoffs. He hates himself. He hates that he wants to feel pain because he thinks he deserves it. He doesn’t want to think he deserves it.

_I CAN HELP YOU OUT WITH THAT._

Peter shivers, and turns around, pressing his back to the wall. He hangs his head. 

Today was the day he planned to wear the eye patch for the first time.

Because today is his birthday. 

The calendar Sam got him has daily affirmations and he makes sure Peter actively rips off each day before he goes to sleep. And today is August 10th. Today’s affirmation was _I am always headed in the right direction._ AKA up to the roof to plummet off the side. 

He’s eighteen. He’s fucked up, and not even in the way normal teenagers are fucked up. He’s fucked up in the way that he was kidnapped and tortured, nearly killed. He’s fucked up as in he’s missing an eye.

And.

And.

He doesn’t think about it. He doesn’t think about it. He buries it, Peter buries it, he puts it in a hole and he lets it rot.

_YOU CANNOT FORGET, PETEY PIE. I’M WATCHING YOU. I’VE GOT BOTH MY EYES ON YOU. HOW NICE IT IS, TO HAVE BOTH EYES._

“I need,” Peter whispers. “I need to…”

“What?” Tony asks, gently. He stands close to him, in his space, and Peter knows Tony would rob a bank at this point if it made Peter happy. Tony would tear down the tower, take him to California, eat a can of worms—he’d do anything. Because Peter is torturing him. And May. And MJ. And Ned. He’s torturing them.

“Anything,” Tony says, gripping Peter’s shoulder, driving the point home.

“I don’t know,” Peter says, not looking at him. His mouth is dry and his shame is stifling. “Start over. Turn back time.”

“Time travel tends to be dangerous, as I’ve seen up close,” Tony says. “I’m not playing with your life, as much as I want—to change this for you. If it was safe, I would. In an instant.”

Peter lets out the breath he didn’t know he was holding. 

“I will be there,” Tony says. “Whenever you need me. Every single time. We will get through this. Every bad day and every good one. And soon they’ll be mostly good ones.”

Peter reaches up and wipes at his eye. He nods, even though he has a hard time believing it. He hears similar things about fifty times a day. They all think it’ll get better. He does sometimes, too. He’s envious of himself, in those moments. 

“You wanna go back to bed? Sleep in? Or you wanna go watch Star Wars? We can watch in the lounge so May doesn’t hear us.”

Peter glances up. “Which one?” he croaks. “Because I don’t wanna watch _Rise of Skywalker._ I’m still upset.”

“No,” Tony says, shaking his head. “No, the one they did last year. Just about the droids. You liked that one, right? I remember you laughing.”

Peter blows out a breath. “Yeah, that was better.” He wipes at his eye, lower lip trembling, and it’s so hard pretending he’s normal. Especially when he knows he’s not. Try to jump off the roof, let’s go watch Star Wars. 

He’s eighteen. He’s eighteen years old.

“C’mon, bud,” Tony says, softly, trying to tug him towards the stairs. “Pancakes and Star Wars. C’mon.”

Peter swallows hard, letting himself be pulled against Tony’s side as they both head down into the tower, trying to pretend like this newest episode never happened. The walls around them rumble, trying to break apart and give way to the world Beck made, the one that instilled fear in Peter, brought him closer to death. Brought him closer to insanity, pushed him under dark well water to drown in his own pain.

But Tony squeezes his shoulder, and the world takes shape again. The world Peter wants to live in. Not the one he wants to leave behind.

~

Peter always used to love his birthdays. 

They’re something he’s been tucking away for years, memories he tried to remember even if he forgot everything else. Ben would always make a big deal—he’d hang red and white streamers, he’d make party hats, he’d blow one of those horn things over and over again until May snatched it out of his mouth. He liked to pile Peter’s presents in difficult-to-manage arrangements, like castles with bridges he could walk through. They couldn’t afford much but they put money aside so Peter could have things, so that day in August would be sparkly and loud and everything his heart desired.

After Ben died, the birthdays were different—May tried her hardest, and Peter loved that and her, but Ben’s enthusiasm was tattooed on the walls, etched in the air vents, his fingerprints on everything around the apartment and that damn horn blower—Peter could still hear it. The way Ben laughed around it, how it looked like a cigarette sometimes when he held it between his teeth.

But May did special things. Got pies made because Peter preferred them to cake. Made her own decorations. He was still a kid once they lost Ben—a teenager who puffed out his chest and packed his own lunch and sometimes had money he’d earned without May’s help—but when it came to his birthday, he always felt younger, not one year older. She gave him the superhero treatment. Iron Man was everywhere. Cardboard cut-outs. Repulsors hanging from the ceilings. Replica helmets. And even as a teenager, burgeoning on the eve of high school, he still loved Iron Man.

He does now, too. 

Peter used to look forward to his eighteenth birthday. When he was little, and he could hear Ben setting things up in the living room, he’d think about turning eighteen. That’s when you’re supposed to be an adult. Like some song would come on or the light would change or everything would look different, suddenly. Your future in your hands, all the things you wanted to do, all the places you would go. It would suddenly be—different.

It’s different, alright. 

He wasn’t awake at midnight to ring in the new phase of his life, the adulthood he’s been anticipating for longer than he should have been. Because maybe he’s been an adult for longer than he should have been. Not in age or numbers, but in experience. In pain. In the amount of death surrounding him, covering him, clinging to his fingers since Ben hugged him close and told him his parents weren’t coming back. Since a green-tinted lab and a spider bite. Since a gunshot, and his uncle’s blood on his hands. Since the first civilian he lost. Since trapped under the rubble. Since donut ship. Since _I don’t wanna go, I don’t wanna go._ Since Tony in a hospital bed. Since flash of light. Since strapped down, a knife in his arm. Since Beck’s laughter.

Since the left side of his world went dark. Since he screamed and screamed and screamed for someone that wasn’t there. 

Peter stares at himself in the mirror. He’s wearing the red eye patch Tony gave him, among so many others. The bandage is sitting like a plaster mold on the counter, the packing and dressing in the trash. Peter adjusts the strap around his head, fluffs his hair up around it. Cracks his jaw, and it sounds like sand. 

This isn’t the person he thought he’d be when he turned eighteen. 

“Peter?” MJ’s voice asks, from the other side of the door. “Hey, I’m here. You okay, babe?”

He smiles a little bit. _Babe._ They’ve been trying that, testing it out, and every time she says it he feels tingles from his toes to his forehead. 

She hasn’t seen him with the eye patch yet. He’s waiting for the other shoe to drop, with MJ. For her to look at him and realize what she’s doing, what she’s losing, being with him. He won’t lose Ned, he knows he won’t lose him, but he could lose MJ in the blink of an eye. One day she’ll just stop answering his texts. She won’t pick up. He won’t ever get to hold her again.

“Peter,” she says, a little more forcefully. “Did you fall in?”

Peter smiles, and looks away, down at the sink. “That’s a May joke,” he says. “You can’t say that. It’s too Mom.”

“Well, stop hovering and come out,” MJ says, knowing him too well.

Peter sighs. He looks at himself again, and traces his finger around the edge of the eye patch, still having strange hope that he’ll see again, somehow. No time travel, just...a miracle. 

He pushes the bandage into the garbage, and then he walks over to the door. His hand hovers over the knob for a minute, and he gets a flash of living in this bathroom for as long as he can without food. He wonders how long he could last, hiding from them.

_GOD, YOU’RE SUCH A BABY._

He hears the beginnings of a storm behind him, the beginnings of Beck’s meddling in his goddamn head, and he knows that’s his cue to leave. He briefly touches the eye patch again before he forces himself to pull his hand back, and then he leaves the bathroom before he can think about it anymore.

She’s standing right there when he opens the door, and her face doesn’t change when she first sees him.

But then it does. She smiles, the kind of smile that grows fast and big, like she’s actually looking at something she cares about genuinely. And maybe he feels it, that genuine care, maybe for a second, and he takes her outstretched hands and lets her pull him out into the hallway.

“Hey,” she says, tilting her head at him. She doesn’t say happy birthday or anything, and he wonders if she’s saving it, or planning something. She leans in and kisses him, softly, and he will never, ever get over that until the day he dies.

“Hey,” he says, running his tongue over his bottom lip once he pulls away. He sucks in a stilted breath, and is so aware of the eye patch that he feels like he’s got something growing on his head. He glances away from her, down the hallway. “So, uh, how's it look?” he asks, clearing his throat.

“It looks good,” she says, without any dishonesty or weird inflection. She reaches up and runs her fingers through his hair, eyes tracing over his face. 

“Tony could probably like—make me an eye, or something,” Peter says, not knowing why he says it. “If this is like—weird. Or something.”

“It’s not weird,” MJ says. She slides her hand down over his shoulder and steps a little closer to him. “I mean, it’s not weird to me or anyone else. But it’s about you and what you feel. What you want. That’s all that matters, really. So if you want him to do that, he’ll do that. If you want to try and get used to this, everyone is behind you. That’s it.”

_HOW FUCKING SWEET, MY TEETH ARE ROTTING._

Peter’s face goes a little hot, and he nods, stepping in and pulling her against him. She sighs, tucking her face into his neck. 

Jesus, he must have done something right to get to be this close to her.

~

Ned shows up a little bit after MJ does, and the amount of thick dread Peter feels builds and builds. He’s got excitement, fear, anticipation, worry, all of it swirling around in a simmering concoction weighing down his stomach. 

He hangs out with Ned and MJ in his room for a bit, and then Tony and May call them into the dining room. 

Peter thinks about birthdays past as he walks through the hallway, clenching his fists. Tony always goes all out, like Ben used to, except Tony has a lot more money to play with. Peter doesn’t know what he’s expecting, on a day like this, in this entire fucking clusterfuck of a situation.

But it isn’t this.

He sees the cupcakes on the table, in the middle of some of Pepper’s nicer china, but she’s not there and Morgan isn’t either. Peter looks around, tentatively, almost as if he’s expecting someone to jump out and yell surprise. But no one does, and Tony and May just stand there by the table, barely looking at him.

_WOW, OH WOW. I’VE GOT NO WORDS._

The hallucinations start to come out in droves as they sit down at the table, and Tony says something but Peter can’t hear it over the wailing in his head. He doesn’t know if it’s a memory, if it’s his own crying when Beck was hurting him or some innocuous pain not belonging to anyone, but he feels it in his bones.

He glances at Ned, the only one of them looking at him.

There’s nothing. This is it. This is his birthday.

He feels incredibly selfish for expecting anything else, for _wanting_ anything else, after everything they’ve given to him, everything they’ve done for him always, every moment, especially after he got back. They’ve stopped their lives, for him. Sacrificed everything, for him.

His heart beats wildly in his chest, and he breathes hard through his mouth as May puts two cupcakes in front of him. There are no gifts. No decorations, no Pepper, no Morgan, no Sam, no Matt _why the fuck would Daredevil want to be at your birthday party? He wouldn’t. None of the rest of them want to be here, either. You’re an obligation. You’re a job. Not a friend, or family._

_THAT’S RIGHT. YOU’RE A FUCKING OBLIGATION. LOOK AROUND YOU. THEY DON’T CARE._

Peter’s mouth is dry and they’re still talking but he can’t hear them. 

He’s selfish. To want more. He doesn’t deserve it, and they’ve done enough.

But he expected it.

Why? He shouldn’t.

But he did. He _did._ They’ve done more in the past. Tony and May are two of the most extra fucking people in the universe, especially when it comes to him.

So that means—

They don’t think he can handle it. Not that he doesn’t deserve it, they don’t think that whether he does or not, but they don’t think he can handle it. They think he’s _regressing._ Not moving forward. A party? He just tried to jump off the fucking roof this morning. Tony definitely told May. If they had anything planned, they nixed it. If they have presents, they’re gonna hold off until they’re not living in a day with so much weight and meaning. 

They’re telling him he’s moving forward but he’s not. He’s not and they know it. They know it, they know it, and his eighteenth birthday is dead. It’s fucking dead.

Just like he is.

_I SHOULD HAVE KILLED YOU, RIGHT? I SHOULD HAVE LET YOU DIE WHEN YOU DECIDED YOU WANTED TO._

He didn’t want to. He had to. But part of him did die, and there’s another part of him splintering now, a deep kind of pain with a line directly to his heart. Ned is the only one that looks startled—Tony, May and MJ are talking and he can’t hear them and he feels crippled by his own selfish expectations and their lack of faith in him and his life going down the goddamn toilet.

He’s a waste. A waste. _Why_ did he expect something? A shadow of a birthday for a shadow of a person.

They’re noticing he isn’t hearing them now, all their attention is on him and he wonders what the hell his face is doing. 

“Thank you,” he says, voice trembling, unsure if it even applies to anything they said at all. 

Tony passes glasses around and May starts pouring apple cider. Peter must be hiding his emotions well, from all of them but Ned, because Ned is staring at him. The room is a swirl of nightmares and he takes an awkward bite of a cupcake, the crumbs tumbling out of his mouth like he’s a six year old and not an eighteen year old at the exact kind of party he deserves. 

He’s using all of his strength to keep his tears back but the dam is about to collapse. His throat is painfully tight and he hangs his head, Beck’s laughter loud and biting in his ears. 

“Gimme one second,” Peter says, trying to sound like he’s not about to break down. “One second. I’ll—be right back.”

He gets up before any of them can say anything, or maybe they do and he doesn’t hear them, because he hears what sounds like the end of the fucking world all around him, like gunshots and explosions and he hates his own dramatics, he hates what Beck put in his head, he hates what Beck made him, he hates that Beck gave him so much goddamn _hate_, enough that it’s seeping through him, but fortunately, only landing directly on his own head. 

He hates himself. He hates his own expectations. He hates that he’s led them to believe he isn’t ready for a proper birthday—but maybe he’s fucking not. Maybe they know him better than he knows himself. Because they can see him, see him from the outside. They see what the world sees. And it’s clearly very fucking embarrassing.

He gets into his bedroom and doesn’t close the door all the way behind him, bending over and trying not to puke.

He has to go back out there. They got him cupcakes and apple cider—he likes both of those things. They still love him. He knows they do. They love him more than anything.

They just don’t trust him.

His eye burns with tears and he feels so, so stupid, and he rips the eye patch off, tossing it across the room. He stands there, breathing hard, feeling like the most worthless person on the goddamn planet.

“Peter,” Ned’s voice says.

Peter’s heart sinks and he immediately covers his eye socket, fear sparking up and down his arms. “Ned,” he says, his voice shaking. “I—I—” He stumbles over to where he thinks the eye patch landed, and it’s dark in here and he’s crying and he can barely fucking see. He didn’t think anybody would be coming in after his little mini tantrum.

“Here, here, I’ll get it,” Ned says. He walks up behind Peter, putting a hand on his back as he moves around him, and Peter shivers, shaking his head at himself.

“I know you—wouldn’t care, if you—saw it,” Peter says. “My eye socket. But I—it’s—”

“I know you don’t want me to,” Ned says, turning around, the eye patch in his hand. “And that’s okay. That’s completely okay.” He walks over, takes Peter’s hand and puts the patch into it, nodding at him. Peter can tell he’s trying to keep him calm, Ned knows he’s freaking the fuck out, and he nods back, drawing in a wavering breath. He turns around and quickly tries to put the patch back on, his hands shaking, and he knows he’s gonna look like an idiot because he’s not watching himself in the mirror, he’s not gonna do it right.

“I know you’re not happy with what’s happening out there,” Ned says. “I—I don’t know what they’re doing, they didn’t—they just told me to come over.”

Peter swallows hard, patting his hand over the patch, and he turns around, trying not to cry. “They don’t, uh, trust me with—too much activity or attention, I guess.”

“But do you want that?” Ned asks, stepping a little closer.

Peter chews on his lower lip, and Beck is screaming. No words, just screaming. “I don’t know,” Peter says. “Yes. Maybe. I just—I wanted—I wanted a birthday. And maybe it’s too much to ask—”

“It’s not,” Ned says, shaking his head. “You deserve what you want.”

Peter’s eye fills with tears anyway, as much as he doesn’t want it to. “Maybe I don’t, right? I don’t wanna be—selfish—”

“Peter, you are the _opposite_ of selfish,” Ned says. 

“But they’ve already done so much for me, I don’t need a party,” he says, gasping, glancing up at the ceiling. “I should be—happy I got anything—”

“No,” Ned says, stepping closer, touching his shoulder. “No, Peter, you should be _happy,_ period. On your birthday, especially.”

Peter doesn’t know what happy is. Not right now. It feels unattainable, it feels too big and far away. Not with Beck screaming like this. Not with him, three steps forward and ten steps back.

“I feel like I’m losing something,” Peter stutters, afraid of the dark clinging to him, and he doesn’t want to say he’s losing himself, even though he knows that’s what it is, even though he can see a vision of who he once was, and it’s fading. “I just feel like—I feel like—I feel—”

He’s collapsing, words failing him, and Ned tugs him into a hug before Peter can ask. He tucks forward into Ned’s shoulder and cries in the way that only his best friend is allowed to see, and feels his birthday falling away. Like everything else will, because he’s not capable anymore.

“It’s okay,” Ned says. “We’re gonna fix it. We’re gonna fix it.”

~

“Something’s wrong,” Tony says, tapping his finger on the table. He feels himself starting to fidget, that antsy feeling that climbs up his legs and lives in his forehead. “Something’s wrong,” he says again, not looking at May or Michelle, but addressing them both equally.

“You think so?” May asks, eyes going worried. “Do you think—this was wrong? To keep it low key?”

“We didn’t wanna overwhelm him,” Michelle says, glancing back and forth between them.

Tony is near a panic. That was what they said, that they didn’t want to overwhelm him. After the roof incident this morning, and a few other things in the previous days, Tony feels like they’re walking on eggshells. He doesn’t want to put the kid under a microscope, especially on his birthday. They’d decided to be chill, to save presents for a couple days later—it’s hard to celebrate, knowing the pain he’s in, what he’s struggling with. They didn’t want to put too much on his plate.

But Tony saw the look in his eye when he got up. The way Ned was staring at them before he followed. And now their whole setup feels horrifyingly underwhelming, for someone so special and so loved.

“Yeah, I don’t know,” Tony says, knee jumping. “Maybe we should have—”

Ned comes down the hallway, walking with a purpose, and when he comes into view he seems more determined and confident than Tony’s ever seen him. All three of them stand, and it seems coordinated, but it doesn’t stop Ned in his tracks.

Peter isn’t with him. Peter isn’t coming.

“What’s wrong?” May asks, fast. “What happened?”

Ned opens his mouth and closes it, glancing down at the ground before he looks at them again. “I don’t wanna say you broke his heart, but, uh, you broke his heart.”

Tony’s own heart sinks directly into the fucking abyss.

“What?” Michelle and May say at the exact same time.

May keeps talking. “He didn’t—he didn’t want—what did he say?”

“He didn’t really say a lot,” Ned says, his brows furrowed. “He’s—he thinks this—display means that you’re not—that you don’t have faith in him, that you think he can’t handle the kind of big party you’d normally throw. That you think he can’t even deal with having—Morgan and Mrs. Stark and Happy here. He didn’t say this at all but—he deserved better than this, guys.”

“Fuck,” Tony says, looking down at the ground, feeling dizzy.

“I mean, he likes cupcakes, but his favorite thing is pie,” Ned says, staring down at their fucking pathetic layout. “You guys know that. You know him more than anybody else.”

Michelle reaches up and covers her mouth, tears shining in her eyes.

Tony gets that look. The idea that they’ve hurt Peter, the idea that they’ve _disappointed_ him, after all he’s been through, makes Tony want to throw up right here and now. They fucked up. They did the wrong thing. They thought they were doing the right thing, protecting him, but they—they didn’t show him how much he matters on his fucking eighteenth birthday. They didn’t show him how proud they are of him and all he’s done. On his fucking eighteenth birthday. They made him feel small. 

Tony tears up too, thinking about it.

His kid, his fucking kid and they did this.

“He needs the opposite of this,” Ned says, crossing his arms over his chest. “I don’t want to make anybody feel bad—”

“We already feel bad,” May says, wiping at her eyes. 

“But he needs the opposite of this,” Ned continues. “If he gets freaked out, we can help him. But he needs—”

“Okay,” Tony says, his brain shifting into a different gear. “Okay, we’ve got this. Search called off for the day, we’ll have extra security around the building but everyone is on birthday duty as of right now.” He opens up the _WORLD SAVER SUPER DUPER_ group chat, as named by Peter, and quickly adds everyone but him into another group chat that goes unnamed. He doesn’t have time for names. He just has to fix what he broke and make his kid smile on his fucking birthday. 

“What can we do?” May asks. 

“I’m gonna stay with Peter,” Ned says. Tony has never seen him this pissed off, even if he is trying to hide it. 

“I’ll help,” Michelle says, tentatively. “I wanna—fix this too.”

“Okay,” Tony says. “I’m gonna set you up with Nat and Clint. You’ll like her, you might not like him, but with your combined powers you can keep him in line. Uh, May, grab Happy, the two of you can team up.” Tony taps his finger on the side of the phone, trying to figure out exactly how to play this. “I gotta make some—long distance calls I’ve been avoiding.”

He’s gonna fix this. He’s gonna fucking fix this. In spades.

~

Peter can tell how hard Ned is trying. He knows he made his excuses to the others, but no excuse can really get him through the day wasting away in his bedroom. He knows they won’t let him stay in here, not for long. But for now, he grips the controller in his hand and tries to focus on the game and not Beck traipsing around in the room. 

“You’re pulling your punches,” Peter says, looking over at Ned.

“Nuh uh,” Ned says. “I’m just really bad at Mortal Kombat.”

“Then why have we been playing it for an hour?” Peter laughs, shaking his head at him. 

“I mean, it is your birthday,” Ned says, winking at him.

Peter looks at him and thinks about how he can’t wink anymore. He thinks about how he’s been avoiding driving, because May keeps saying that it isn’t necessary in New York, but now he probably won't be able to do it at all, whether he wants to or not, whether Tony buys him all the cars in the world. He thinks about the laundry list of things he’s incapable of doing since Beck carved out his eye, and Sam’s advice and Matt’s optimism seem to fall to the wayside amongst all his sadness and pain. He’s broken, no matter what they say. He’s not Matt. He’s not Nick Fury. 

He’s had a lot of sadness in his life, and usually he’s able to combat it, push it aside, find his way out before it consumes him—to protect May, to keep her going, to protect New York as Spider-Man, but now—she doesn’t need him, not like this. And New York needs Spider-Man, not one-eyed Willy. He can’t do shit, like this. No matter what Matt says. No matter what Tony makes. 

So this sadness has weight. It makes all his fears big and overwhelming. Like they can sink their teeth in him, rip him limb from limb. Make him as small and useless as he feels.

Their battle ends in a draw, and Peter turns off the game before Ned can start another fight. 

“Let’s play the Spider-Man game,” Ned says, excitedly. “They’ve made it really super cool.”

“Nah,” Peter says, his heart tearing at the idea of playing that game, as he is now. He remembers when Tony first told him about it, after he blipped back. He almost had a heart attack, and then he played it for three days straight. Now, it fills him with dread. A life he can no longer live. A person he can never be again.

Not with this attitude, anyway, but it feels locked in place, unable to be changed. 

He’s pure sadness, permeating through his veins. 

“I’m gonna take a nap, I think,” Peter says, already fluffing out the sheets and worrying about when the others come looking for him.

“C’mon, Peter,” Ned says, tugging at his blankets. “Don’t, let’s just—hang out.”

“Only for like an hour,” Peter says, knowing full well there are nightmares waiting for him on the other side of his eye.

“Peter,” Ned pleads. 

“Just an hour,” Peter says, already laying down. 

He dreams about blood spurting. When Beck cut him too deep and they both thought he was gonna die. Beck staunched the bleeding and pretended he cared. Apologized. Made him dinner while he was recovering, fed him broccoli and cheese. Peter spit it out in his face, screamed and screamed until Beck started screaming back, close to him, too close, his wild eyes nearly popping out of his fucking head.

_YOU’RE NEVER GETTING OUT OF HERE, YOU HEAR ME? _

Peter wakes up to thunder. He startles, raging against the slice of darkness like he always does when he first wakes up, but then Ned is there, touching his shoulder. 

“Hey,” Ned says. “You good?”

Peter blows out a breath as lightning strikes again, and rubs his hand over his chest. “Sorry,” he says. “How long was I sleeping?”

“Two hours, maybe,” Ned says.

Peter immediately feels bad for leaving him alone, for succumbing to depression sleep while Ned was right here trying to help. He knows the others are out there too—Tony, May, MJ—all unsure why he bailed on them on his damn birthday.

He’s such a fucking asshole.

_HOW SAD. HOW FUCKING SAD. MAYBE YOU SHOULD COME ON HOME, PETEY. I MISS YOU._

Another strike of lightning, and Peter watches as Ned gets up from beside him, walking over to the window. “Wow, Peter,” Ned says, pushing the blinds aside. “You should look at this.”

“What?” Peter asks, peering over at him. “God laughing at me?”

“Peter,” Ned says, like he didn’t hear him. “For real.”

Peter sighs, throwing his legs over the side of the bed, and he pads over to stand beside Ned, pushing the blinds aside too. 

That’s when he sees it. 

_HAPPY BIRTHDAY PETER_ written out in fucking lightning. In the sky. Not a hallucination, because Ned sees it too, and it flashes in the air before it disappears and then another strike hits, and it’s there again, lighting up the sky. His name. In the sky. In lightning.

Peter stares, shoulder to shoulder with Ned.

“What’s that?” he says, deadpan, explosions going off in his head.

“Looks a lot like ‘happy birthday Peter’ written out in the sky in lightning,” Ned says.

Another rumble of thunder, and then it happens again. Except this time there’s a smiley face at the end. 

“I’m going crazy,” Peter says, still staring, his mouth dry. 

“I guess I am too,” Ned says.

Peter’s phone buzzes, over on the bedside table where it’s plugged in (Ned must have done that, because Peter definitely didn’t remember to do it before he broke down and fell asleep.) He picks it up, the wire hitting his drawers, and he sees a message from Tony.

_Peter, you are cordially invited to the 23rd floor for a special gathering. Whenever you’re ready, we’re here waiting :) _

Peter stares at the message, his heart beating faster, and he feels Ned reading over his shoulder. 

“Maybe you should put on some better clothes?” Ned asks, nudging him.

Peter feels half hypnotized, getting ready, unaware of what the hell is going on and unsure if he’s even slightly ready for it, considering what happened earlier. Ned must have told them more than Peter thought he did, but he can’t bring himself to ask, can’t find the words. 

Amongst all the Beck, and the swirling panic and the wormholes opening up all around him, his own nightmares crawling out and trying to choke him—he can hear Ben’s voice. Something that feels real, like a memory is ricocheting forward from the back of his mind and settling at the forefront of everything else. Something he said once, when he was actually here.

_Everyone wants to celebrate you, Pete! You’re the best kid there is, buddy. Of course Iron Man would come if he could. The phone lines are just too jammed up. I couldn’t get through to him!_

He and Ned barely talk on their way up there, and they don’t encounter anyone else on the way to the elevator. They stand there, shoulder to shoulder, and Peter doesn’t know if he can be disappointed again. He doesn’t want to be disappointed by them. He hates it. He hates how it feels, and it makes him guilty. They’re too important to him.

The elevator door opens and—

There’s music. Something that Peter immediately recognizes as his and Tony’s workout mix, because _Hand Clap_ is blasting, a song Tony never listened to on his own. And there are—Ned gasps, and Peter barely breathes—there are so many damn superheroes here that Peter feels like he’s gonna lose the other eye from the sheer shiny shock of it all.

Steve, Bruce, Nat, Clint, Thor coming in _through the window_, Happy, Sam, Rhodey, Matt, Bucky, Wanda, the Guardians, who Peter only saw twice in the eight months before London, Nebula, Scott and Hope, Doctor Strange, Wong, Shuri _and_ T’Challa—everywhere he looks there’s somebody, and they all turn when they see him and start yelling out happy birthday greetings and other things he can’t make out, because all of their voices are mixing together.

Peter walks out of the elevator, dazed, as Ned holds the doors open. MJ, May, Pepper and Morgan are standing towards the front of the crowd, closest to the elevator, and MJ is—wearing a dress. Long sleeved and deep red, with spiders along the edges of her skirt, and she is—_Jesus_. He blinks, hardly able to focus—he’s only been up here a couple times—this is one of the fancier floors in the tower, with a dance floor and a full bar, a pool table and a game room, a conversation pit and a dining room with four different tables, and Peter sees all the food they’ve got laid out. There’s one whole table devoted to pies—apple, key lime, cherry, pecan, just about every pie he’s ever tried and liked sitting there, ready to be eaten. There’s a gift table next to the pie table, and Peter’s eye fills with tears looking at all the different shapes and sizes.

The whole room is decorated. Streamers and balloons and confetti and different photos of him with all the rest of them hanging on the walls. 

It’s _incredible._

“Petey!” Morgan yells, racing up to meet him and launching himself into his arms. He catches her and hoists her up, hugging her back. 

“Hey, girly,” he says, as the others approach him slowly, tentatively. 

Morgan pulls back and braces her hands on Peter’s shoulders. “Daddy said he was the worst ever and he doesn’t deserve you,” she says. 

“Morgan,” Pepper laughs, walking up alongside them. 

“And he said he had to make the best party ever, so I printed out all my favorite pictures of you and taped them to the walls,” she says, grinning. “Do you like them?”

“I _love_ them,” Peter says, his voice breaking. He leans in, pressing a long kiss to her cheek, enough to make her giggle. 

“Happy Birthday, sweetheart,” Pepper says, leaning in and hugging him tight. She takes Morgan from him, giving him a smile. “C’mon, honeybun. Let’s go get Peter some pie.”

“Apple!” Morgan yells, as Pepper carries her away, and she clearly knows him just as well as he thought she did. 

“Thank you!” Peter calls after them.

May and MJ converge on him, both looking sheepish. Peter glances at Ned, and Ned knocks him on the arm, walking over to approach Doctor Cho, who’s stationed by the vegetable tray.

“We made a severe misstep,” May says. “Tony and me, mostly.”

“No, I—messed up too,” MJ says. 

“We just weren’t sure what the right thing to do was,” May says. “And we hurt your feelings, baby. I’m so sorry.”

Peter shakes his head. “No, it’s—it’s fine—”

“Peter,” May says, stepping closer. “No. No excuses for us. We messed up. Honestly, and we know it, and you don’t have to protect us. But we thought this would be—better. Is it better?”

The music changes to _The Eye of the Tiger_, which always makes Peter laugh because it reminds him of Tony tripping over the medicine ball. 

“Yeah, it’s...it’s better,” Peter says, trying not to cry. “It’s—it’s awesome.” He steps forward, hugging her hard.

“I love you, angel,” May says, kissing him over and over again. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” he says, a weight lifting.

Peter has a hard time not acting like an insane person around all of these heroes, Shuri in particular, but they all welcome him with open arms, and they _don’t_ treat him like someone to be pitied, which is something he worried about in the back of his mind when he stepped out of the elevator—something he always worries about when he sees someone that’s not Tony or May. But he plays pool with Shuri and T’Challa, discusses the advances Wakanda has made since everybody blipped back, and Shuri makes sure to take him aside and ask about his progress since they last talked about it. She cares, she genuinely cares, and he wishes like hell he got to spend more time with her.

Sam and Bucky periodically swoop in to pat him on the back or to point out something else that’s here for his birthday, like the photo booth that Tony apparently just had lying around, and then they take about sixteen strips of photos together that don’t make Peter cringe when he sees them, despite the eye patch. He eats key lime pie with Natasha and has an actual, legitimate conversation with her about Star Wars, which almost breaks his brain. But then it _actually_ breaks his brain when she says her favorite character is C-3P0 and leaves it at that, like it’s the most normal and expected fact in the world. 

Peter realizes he hasn’t seen Tony since he got here, and he starts looking for him when Thor steps in front of him, taking his arm. He pulls him off towards the bar, which is being run by a guy that Peter has definitely seen doing security before. 

“Do not tell Stark,” Thor says, grinning as the bartender hands him a pink cocktail. He immediately pushes it Peter’s way, looking over his shoulder as he sits down at the bar.

Peter laughs, taking the glass, and staring up at Thor like he’s never seen him before. He hasn’t, really. Not this close, and definitely not one on one. “Uh. I don’t know if I—can legitimately pretend I didn’t drink this. Especially because you’re the one that gave it to me.”

“He’s the one that put a bar at your party,” Thor says, raising his eyebrows. “So, if you genuinely think about it, he’s the one at fault here.”

Peter snorts, and sits down next to him.

“I’m very sorry I didn’t make it back until now,” Thor says. “But I thought you would enjoy it if I brought Quill and the others along with me. I mean. The tree and the rabbit, at a party, that’s—that’s always a good time.”

“Yeah,” Peter says, looking over his shoulder, where Ned is talking to the both of them, his eyes wide. “No, I’m—I’m really glad you’re all here.”

“Quill has been purely miserable lately, I was beginning to rethink even bringing him anywhere near you after Stark told me what you’ve been through,” Thor says. Then he sighs, his gaze going a little soft. “You know I’ve experienced what you endured,” he says. He reaches up and taps his fake eye.

“Yeah,” Peter says. “I remember.” To have something in common with Thor is—well, Peter feels insane. Yeah. 

“Odin the All-Father wore an eye patch, and he was the mightiest God that ever walked,” Thor says, holding his head high. “There’s nothing wrong with it. But if it does bother you, Stark could get you something like Rocket got me. Quite easily, I’m sure. Stark can create anything, Rhodes once called him a—MacGyver. I’m unsure what that’s referencing, but I’m sure it means he can make an eye for you, if you so desired.”

Peter blows out a breath. “I don’t really know what I want,” he says. “I mean. I wanna see again, definitely, but I—”

“You want to try and accept your situation,” Thor says, nodding. “Try to work through it.”

“Maybe,” Peter says, almost getting lost in his own head. “I don’t know. I really don’t.” His ears flare up a little in embarrassment. He really doesn’t want to sound like an idiot in front of Thor.

“I don’t believe I would have gone looking for a replacement eye after my sister snatched it out,” Thor says. “But Rocket presented me with one and it just—seemed to work out that way. But I believe that whatever you choose to do will be the right thing. I’ve seen Spider-Man’s exploits, and Stark cannot say enough about you. I know you’ll be up to the challenge ahead of you. And you have me behind you, if you’d like.”

“Oh, I would,” Peter says, too fast. “I mean. Yeah. You’re awesome.”

Thor grins. “Thank you,” he says. “And it’s the day of your birth. So drink your fancy pink drink, I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.”

Peter drinks what he finds out is a strawberry daiquiri and he doesn’t hear Tony’s head exploding in the distance, but May finds her way to him after and tells him he can have _one_ drink tonight and that’s it. 

He dances with MJ when something slow finally comes on, and something slow only comes on because Pepper switches the playlist. MJ laughs in his ear as he holds her close, and maybe they kiss in the hallway away from everybody else until Sam comes and finds him, absolutely relentlessly ragging on him until he gets them both back on the dance floor. 

“He’s really awesome but he’s also like, super obnoxious when he wants to be,” Peter says. 

“All these super famous people that you’re friends with,” MJ says, shaking her head at him. “And not just super famous, but _super_ super famous.”

“Yeah,” Peter says, in a rush of breath. He feels a little twinge in his chest and he squeezes her hand. “Uh, I haven’t seen Tony since this started and I feel like he’s avoiding me.”

“Go,” MJ says, meeting his gaze. “I’m not gonna at all try to talk to Natasha. Like, not at all, I’m not even gonna attempt that.”

Peter snorts, leaning in and kissing her. His stomach flutters every time he does it and he still can’t believe he’s allowed. She smiles at him when he pulls away, and he gets another pat on the back from Bucky as he moves around, searching for Tony. He gets caught in a brief debate with Ned and Scott about pie and cake, which he quickly leaves behind when he catches sight of Tony over by the second buffet table.

“Hey,” Peter says, coming up behind him. 

“Oh,” Tony says, jumping a little bit. He smiles slightly, awkwardly at first, but it gets warm as he looks at him longer. “How you doing, bud?”

Peter’s heart beats a little faster. “Haven’t seen you,” he says, walking off towards the sliding glass door so Tony has to follow him. 

“Uh, well, I was appropriately shamed by my truly shitty decision to...downplay your birthday,” Tony says, trailing a little behind him, clenching his hands. “So I didn’t know if you wanted to—steer clear of me, for a bit.”

Peter stops, turning around to look at him, his brows furrowing. He sighs, feeling like there’s a balloon in his chest instead of bobbing around on the ceiling. “I’m not mad at you. Or May. You were—you were trying to protect me, that’s all you ever try to do. I know you weren’t...trying to hurt me or anything.”

“But we still did,” Tony says, clearing his throat. “And I hate that. That’s the—literally the exact opposite of what I wanna do, kid. You know I love you and I just—I hate that I put you through any kind of heartache or pain, especially on your birthday.”

Peter shakes his head. “I don’t even know what I want,” he says, getting a little teary. “How are you guys supposed to know?”

“We’re supposed to do better and we know it,” Tony says. “We’re just—we’re just…” He trails off, and looks around. 

“You pulled this together,” Peter says. “In like three hours. And it’s perfect. It’s amazing.”

“We’re lucky Natasha and Clint are like, expert present wrappers for some reason,” Tony says, shaking his head. “They did that shit like they were on a timer—well, I guess they kinda were.”

“It’s fine,” Peter says, reaching up and wiping his eye. “I’m not mad at you, I’m—my brain is like, super off kilter—”

“No it’s not,” Tony says. “Your feelings are totally valid and we fucked up and we own that. We’re not gonna do it again. I’m just glad you like this, we were literally on our knees praying it’d be what you want. And, uh—I didn’t wrap my gift, because he doesn’t like to be wrapped and DUM-E was giving me a look when I was thinking about trying.” 

Tony clicks a couple buttons on his watch, and then a small spider drone comes flying in from the hallway, and hovers in front of Peter. It has a solid little black body, with red legs that look delicate, but are sharp at the points.

“He’s an upgrade for your late, great droney, except this guy has a couple new things he can do,” Tony says. “He can help alert you to when there’s something in your path you can’t see, he can measure things out and let you know how far away they are from you, and he can repeat your mantra in any voice you want. So if you want to hear it in Thor’s voice and he’s not available, we’ve got sweet droney to take care of it for you. He can also do a couple battley type things that we don’t need to get into right now, my own paranoia, it’s fine, you’re protected.” Tony clears his throat, flashes a little smile.

The drone bops up and down a few times, like it’s excited or something, and it lands on Peter’s shoulder. Peter laughs, grinning down at it. Tony gently takes Peter’s hand and places a wristband there—Peter can see an alternate universe where he slaps it on Peter’s wrist like the slap bands from elementary school, but this Tony knows not to do that because of Peter’s tainted memories. The drone chirps and buzzes on his shoulder as Peter turns the band over in his hand—it looks a lot like one of the Stark watches that Tony made to rival Apple, but it feels full of upgrades, red and black and pretty much the coolest thing he’s ever held in his hand.

“That runs our little friend and can also take calls, go on the net, etc,” Tony says, nonchalantly. The drone lifts up off Peter’s shoulder and starts flying around the room. “He can also—scan for people and see where they are in the building, if you need us and we’re not answering.”

Peter watches, stars in his eye, and he looks over at Tony and can’t take it anymore, moving in to hug him. He hates that they were both sad today, no matter why they were, and he squeezes his eye shut and hugs hard. “Thank you,” he says. “He’s amazing. Thank you.”

“Happy Birthday, Pete,” Tony says, voice hitching. “I love you.”

“I love you too.”

Iron Man isn’t here anymore in decorations, but he’s here in person, here in _I love you’s_, here in the slot of Parental Figure just like May is. Everyone here is here because of Tony, and Tony insists that they’re all here because of _Peter_, but they wouldn’t know or care about Peter if it wasn’t for Tony. So Peter stands next to him when they all sing to him, next to him and May and Ned and MJ, and all his favorite people are singing to him and raising their glasses and for the first time all night Peter realizes that he hasn’t heard Beck at all—no screaming, no rattling on, no hallucinations or inclinations, just happiness. Just here, just all of it. He’s not embarrassed of the eye patch. He doesn’t have to make Tony wear his. He just watches them sing and hold up their glasses and he tries not to cry.

So, of course, just as he’s realizing this, Beck decides to manifest in the middle of it all, right where he doesn’t belong. He’s dressed up, like all the rest of them are, and he shoves himself in between Wanda and Quill, who are both singing a little louder than the others. 

Peter stiffens, and as the song ends (Beck going high when the rest of them go low) Matt moves in closer and takes off his glasses. 

“We alright?” he asks, instantly making those closest to him converge in on him, like a wall.

“Yeah,” Peter says, in a rush of breath. He’s trembling again, remembering the fans and the radiator and the dripping and him, him, him everywhere. “He’s just. Behind you.”

“What?” Tony asks, eyes whipping up. 

“Not really,” Matt says, reaching out and taking Peter’s wrist. “Right?”

“Yeah,” Peter says, feeling MJ take his other hand. “Not—not really.” He peers around the darkness clinging to him, moving into May and Ned’s space, and the place where Beck was is empty now. 

He’s not here. He’s not here. He doesn’t belong.

Peter moves in and out of conversations, receives so many well wishes that he tries to memorize them all, and he watches as his new drone cascades through the air, bouncing around happily. Tony always seems to make the things he makes for Peter full of light and encouragement. Optimistic and soft. 

Peter decides not to open any other presents in front of people after he cries about May’s—a beautiful, blown up, black and white photo of him, her and Ben in Washington Square Park. MJ tells him it's better to open hers in private anyway, which sends Ned into a headlong speech about why his Lego set will _also_ be better opened in private.

Then Sam comes over to Peter’s chair, with what looks like a pet carrier. The others are still gathered around him, MJ on the arm of the chair, and Sam seems to meet every pair of eyes before he settles on Peter’s one. 

“Now, I wouldn’t have done this if I wasn’t completely sure about it,” Sam says, gesturing with one hand as Peter completely and utterly hones in on the carrier. “But she is the chillest girl on the planet, on _any_ planet, she’s built for therapy and out of everybody I looked at, she was the best for you.”

Peter’s heart is _slamming_ against his chest. 

Sam kneels down and puts the carrier on the floor, and slowly opens the door. A chunky, black and white cat strolls out, glances around until her eyes land on Peter. She trills a little bit, and Sam laughs, grabbing her up. He deposits her in Peter’s lap, and he’s—he’s—he doesn’t even know what his brain is doing. 

Her white spot starts at the top of her head and expands down her face and chest, spanning out over her whole belly. Her feet are white but the whole rest of her is black, and she immediately starts purring, bumping her head into Peter’s chin. She practically collapses onto his chest, and he just. Bursts into tears.

“Oh my God, Sam,” Peter laughs, hugging the cat close, and she purrs even louder. “Like—this is a—like, _this—_”

“Both Tony and May told me it’d be a good thing,” Sam says. “She’s real smart, she can sense your moods—look, she loves you.”

She keeps rubbing against him and purring and he’s always loved the way cats purr and this is _his cat_ and he reaches up, scratching the side of her face, listening to the way Tony laughs beside him. MJ slips an arm over his shoulders, and there’s no Beck, no nothing, and he won’t let him ruin this moment. Sam got him a cat. He got him a _cat._

“What are you gonna name her, baby?” May asks. 

Peter hears a camera click, and glances up to see Ned taking photos.

“Leia,” Peter says, kissing the top of her head. She meows at him, almost like she understands, and she preens up for another kiss. Which he quickly gives her.

“Star Wars name, see Wilson? I called it,” Tony says. He ruffles Peter’s hair, and reaches down, running his finger along the side of Leia’s face. She closes her eyes happily.

“Yeah, I figured so too,” Sam says. “I got everything you need for her, Pete, and Tony already bought a lifetime supply of the fanciest food Miss Priss could ever want.”

The sound goes out in Peter’s ears, all the music and talking, and Peter can feel her purring. He kisses her again, and laughs, and feels like maybe, maybe, he is moving forward. Maybe he is. Maybe he can.

“Happy, bud?” Tony asks, his voice cutting back in. 

“Yeah,” Peter says, without hesitation, his heart fucking soaring. “Yeah. I really am.”

~

Tony finds Quentin Beck. 

He finds him in this abandoned, obvious as all hell factory in Queens. Minutes away from Peter’s apartment. 

The man’s hair is all grown out, he’s got a beard and mustache, and blood-shot eyes, looking nothing like the person Tony knew all those years ago, looking nothing like the person they showed on the news after the London attacks and Peter’s kidnapping. 

Tony feels a rage he’s never quite felt before. It’s Pepper falling into the fire, it’s Rhodey falling out of the sky, it’s watching his parents die, it’s Peter disappearing in his arms, Peter’s last phone call, Peter on the roof with only one eye and too much blood smeared all over his face. All of it, all together.

“Well, well, well,” Beck says, turning around. His clothes are in tatters and he cracks his knuckles, cocking his head at Tony. “Look who it is. Look who it _is_. Here to collect his fucking eye, huh? Well I kept it. You can’t have it. It’s _mine._”

Tony doesn’t have words. He’s never felt like this. He thinks about the things Peter has told him—the threats of rape, the endless violence, the broken legs and the waterboarding and the gaslighting and the burning and the cutting and the constant, constant torture. He sees it all, he feels it all, feels it the way Peter did, and _no one_ hurts his child like that. _No one._

Tony launches himself at him and tackles Beck to the ground. Tony lands on top of him, and there’s a scuffle for a few minutes, Beck kneeing him, trying to gouge out Tony’s own eyes, but Tony gets the iron hand around Beck’s neck and he squeezes, fueled by anger, by revenge, by Peter’s horrific pain. 

He wants this. He wants it. He wants it to _hurt._

“_Wooden_, huh, asshole?” Tony yells, through gritted teeth. “_Ambush_? How many fucking times did you say that shit to Peter before it stuck?”

Beck can’t answer, and Tony doesn’t need it. Beck’s face goes red, like he’s about to pop, but Tony keeps squeezing. The arm is stronger than he is, and he can’t control himself right now. He doesn’t want this fucker living in the same world as Peter for one second longer. He feels bones snap, and Beck’s face goes slack. There’s blood at the corner of his mouth, and his neck is rashy and bruised and purple when Tony pulls his hands back. 

He breathes hard, staring down at him. 

Tony isn’t filled with regret.

He wants him to sit up so he can kill him again.

  


Tony startles awake in the easy chair in Peter’s room, his heart beating so fast that he has to sit there for a moment and calm down. Holy _fuck._

He glances around, sees May on the trundle bed, and Peter, MJ and Ned all in a clump in the middle of the big bed, Leia curled up in Peter’s arms and purring contentedly. Tony stares for a couple seconds, trying to ground himself in the moment, and then he carefully climbs out of the chair without closing it, creakily making his way over to the door as he shoots a message to Pepper. 

He’s mixed up in emotions as he pads down the hallway, half inside his dream and half worrying about Peter sleeping in the eye patch. He needs to make him something he can sleep in, something that’s comfortable.

The dream. The fucking dream. 

Pepper meets him outside their bedroom and he swallows hard, watching her gently close the door. “Morgan’s in there,” she whispers. “She’s been sleeping with me, since.”

“I’m gonna come back soon,” Tony says, fast, leaning in and kissing the corner of her mouth.

“I’m not too worried,” she says, smiling at him. “I get to sleep in.”

Tony scoffs, almost frenzied about the task at hand and how to broach the topic. 

“What’s wrong?” she asks, reaching out and holding his hand. “You have a bad dream?” 

She knows him too damn well. He blows out a breath, shaking his head, and steps a little bit closer to her. “I had a dream that I found Beck,” he says, hearing his own heart in his ears. “But, I, uh—straight up killed him. Just—just choked him to death without even—well, I did think about it, and I did it anyway, and it—uh, I—I sort of worry that, uh, I’m gonna…” He trails off, shaking his head and looking down at their feet. 

“You worry that you’ll...actually do that?” Pepper asks. “If you find him?”

“When,” Tony says, looking up at her. “Because we’re gonna find him. But I sort of feel like—I shouldn’t be there when we do. Because I—even thinking about it now, I just—Pep, I liked it. I was happy to do it. I wanna choke that fucker to death with my bare hands for what he did to Peter.” His lower lip trembles and he shakes his head. There’s no point in lying to her.

She runs her hands over his shoulders and hooks them behind his neck, tugging him forward until they’re pressed together in something reminiscent of the kiss on their wedding day. “That’s your kid,” she says, softly. “I get it. I don’t want you to be—a killer, I don’t want that on your own conscious or Peter’s either. But that man—after what he did, what he’s—what he’s capable of—and the grudge he holds against you? Us? He could try to threaten Peter again. Or you. Or _Morgan_.”

Tony shudders, and he has to try to relax. But the idea of Peter _and_ Morgan being hurt—it makes Tony feel physically fucking sick. He almost blacks out.

“I don’t want you killing anyone,” Pepper says. “Not unless it’s directly self-defense, or defending someone you love. But I—I understand the dream. I understand the inclination.”

Tony nods, and leans in, hugging her tight. He breathes her in, trying to focus, trying to get back inside his own head. 

But he still finds the inclination there.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” she whispers, combing her fingers through his hair. “You just love him, that’s all. You just want to—hurt the man who hurt him.”

Tony just holds her close, and doesn’t say. 

But maybe there is a point in lying. Or lying by silence.

Because he wants to kill him. And Tony thinks, if he comes face to face with him, that he actually fucking might.

He absolutely will, whether anyone wants him to or not. He knows it now more than ever.

He’s gonna kill Beck.


	7. a shooting star

Tony heard about The Punisher when all that shit happened before the world ended, and Matt told him a few things about him here and there since they met, but Tony hasn’t ever come face to face with him. Until today.

He knew Matt would be bringing him because, apparently, Frank Castle wanted to meet Peter after Matt told him about the situation. Tony wasn’t completely thrilled about him knowing, considering how testy he is about Peter’s identity and keeping him safe, but Matt assures him that Frank is on their side, and reminds him that most of the general population thinks that Frank is dead. 

The Punisher isn’t really like any of them—he’s actually the polar opposite of Steve Rogers on his worst day, and his whole deal reminds Tony a lot of the dream he had the other night. Frank Castle doesn’t hesitate when it comes to taking care of people like Quentin Beck, and Tony wonders if he’ll be able to see it in his eyes. That kindred kind of feeling. Tony hasn’t ever particularly planned on killing someone before, but he’s having thoughts he can’t stop, that he can’t banish, and he figures Frank probably doesn’t even go that far, to think about whatever deaths are gonna be on his hands when he does what needs to be done.

What’s going on with Tony right now is technically pre-meditated murder.

So he tries not to think about it.

Frank meets them in Inwood Park, and they stand by the water. He’s smaller than Tony expected him to be, probably because Tony was expecting some giant muscle man even though he’s literally _seen_ photos of him before. 

“Wow, Mr. Castle,” Peter says, immediately leaping to his feet when Frank approaches their bench. “I—I’m really glad you’re not dead. I always believed in you, I always believed in your story, believed in your—motives, your innocence—I, uh—I talk too much. I’m sorry.”

“Not at all, kid,” Frank says, almost softly, as Matt stands smiling between them. Frank glances at Tony with more hardness than he looked at Peter with, but he nods quickly. “Stark,” he says. “Red’s had a couple things to say.”

“What a way to put it,” Matt says.

“Ah, I’m not even gonna ask,” Tony says, standing a little closer to Peter. “But what do we, uh, know about—all this?” He gestures in the kid’s general direction.

“_We_ know who he is,” Frank says, nodding towards Peter. “We know about that—fucking prick, and we’re...following up.”

Following up sounds ominous in the exact kind of way Tony likes, especially when it comes to Beck.

Peter quickly glances at Tony, and he blows out a breath, nodding. Tony doesn’t know what he’s nodding for, and it almost seems like he’s more starstruck by Frank than he was by Matt. 

Frank looks at Peter again, tilting his head slightly. “You’re strong as hell, kid. Before and after this. Spidey’s one of the few costumed heroes I actually respect.” His eyes cut over to Tony then, then back at Peter. Tony tries not to laugh, but whatever, he gets it. Everyone loves Spider-Man. Especially New Yorkers. Whether they’re the damn Punisher or not.

“Thank you,” Peter says, blinking a couple times. “That’s, uh—this guy on the side of the road in Times Square was selling Punisher sweatshirts and I might, uh, I might have bought one or two. Or more than that, maybe.”

Frank smiles at him, wider than Tony would have expected of him. Frank has a very particular look in his eye, which is also surprising. Everything about his demeanor is surprising to Tony, and Frank sniffs, reaching up fast and wiping at his eyes.

He’s a lot...softer than Tony would have anticipated. 

“Gimme a second, kid, I just wanna—wanna say something to Stark here, and then I wanna talk to you, alright?” Frank says.

“Okay,” Peter says, looking at Tony as Frank moves away from him. Tony can tell Frank wants to talk where Matt and Peter can’t hear them, but Tony knows full well they’ll probably be able to hear whatever they say unless they go two or three boroughs over. Especially with how Matt has been training Peter to focus on his other senses, he could probably hear all the way to Jersey in the state he’s in. 

Plus—Tony’s been giving Peter space, sure, but not—out in the world. Not more than a couple feet, the few times they’ve gone out. It makes him feel nervous as shit to even think about heading away from him, and Matt must sense it or whatever he does, because he steps closer to Peter and motions towards Tony with his chin. 

“I got him,” Matt says. “Don’t worry, Tony.”

“Alright,” Tony says, glancing at Peter and reaching up to grip his arm. “Two seconds.”

“Okay,” Peter says, smiling softly, and Matt leads him over to the bench they were sitting on before Frank got here. They both start talking to each other almost immediately, and Tony once again thanks God that Matt took to Peter like he did.

But then again, anyone who doesn’t is a complete psychopath. And Matt’s a pretty normal guy, other than all the nighttime parkour shit. 

Tony follows Frank over to the grassy area, and watches the line of the man’s shoulders as he trudges over to the closest tree. He doesn’t play around with all of that hiding shit, no hats or jackets, not at all concerned at being spotted out in public. Tony needs to catch up on what the hell the public’s opinion is of this guy right now, dead or not. Because when Peter gets attached, he gets attached fast, and Tony isn’t letting him experience another heartbreak, no fucking way.

Tony looks over his shoulder when Frank stops walking, making sure he can still see Peter.

“Yeah, I get it,” Frank says. Tony sees him stuff his hands in his pockets, glancing off in Peter’s direction too. “Uh, Murdock told me, after he met with him—he didn’t really mean to but we were checking in and, uh, he was—affected, by this kid, and what happened to him. And just hearing about it drove me half insane, but, Christ, Stark—everyone always said Spider-Man was kind, polite, all that, Red said it too, but one damn second with your Peter, seeing him with that eye patch and knowing how he got that way, I just—” He cuts himself off, shaking his head and avoiding Tony’s eyes. 

“Yeah,” Tony says, knowing all too well. It’s strange, to hear it from someone else, someone not in their inner circle.

“I, uh, I’m sure you’ve heard a lot about me,” Frank says. “My lady was in journalism and tried to—do what she could for me when she had a platform but it was still hard to—settle the masses, I guess—”

“They get a lot of things wrong,” Tony says, tentatively. “The—masses.”

“Either way, whatever the hell they say about me, whatever the hell I’m actually capable of, what I’ve done—kids are—they’re off limits. Enhanced or not, they’re—they’re off limits.” There’s something haunted in his eyes now, pure stress and strain in the way he holds his jaw. He shakes his head. “You protect kids, that’s it. It’s not—what happened to him, it’s not—it’s not something I can just—stand by and let happen.” He meets Tony’s eyes then, gaze intent. 

“What’s that mean?” Tony asks, crossing his arms over his chest. “You gonna...help us look for him?” Tony feels like a fucking moron even asking that, because this is Frank Castle, the goddamn Punisher—and the way he’s acting about Peter now, shit, Tony might as well have asked if the fucking sky is blue.

“I’m already doing some looking,” Frank says. “What happened to Spider-Man, it’s, uh, got people rattled. They’re inspired by him, they wanna keep it from happening again, especially to someone like him. Got a few people helping, but we’re not just looking for Beck, we’re looking for his cohorts too. Think that might make it easier to find him, and then we can—well, we can’t make it right, but we can—do something. I’ve got ways, we can—we’re gonna get him, Stark.”

Tony thinks about his dream, and swallows hard. He knows what Frank’s ways are. _Good._ “My people have been searching all over the damn place—”

“Your people ain’t my people,” Frank says. 

“You don’t think Black Widow can find a guy?” Tony asks, raising his eyebrows.

“Where is he?” Frank asks. “Huh? Why don’t you have ‘em yet?”

Tony sighs. He doesn’t fucking know. “This guy—”

“This guy is a prick,” Frank says, fast. “He thinks he’s hot shit, he thinks he’s special, all theatrics, the whole thing, and he’s gonna mess up. That’s why we’re gonna go for the assholes he surrounded himself with. We’ll take care of this. I’ll keep you in the loop, Stark. Whoever we find, I’ll bring ‘em your way. We’re gonna keep your kid safe, this asshole isn’t gonna touch him again. Promise you that.”

“Okay,” Tony says, purely thinking about choking Beck to death with his own hands and wondering what the hell that says about him. He glances back over towards Peter again. “He’s probably gonna wanna hang out with you,” Tony says.

“I’ll hang out with your kid,” Frank says. “I don’t know why he’d wanna hang out with me, though, shit.”

“I’m sure he’s well aware of the truth,” Tony says, “whether it was in the papers or not. Peter just—always sees the good in everybody. He knows it’s there.” Tony watches Peter laugh at something Matt said, and Frank smiles, looking off at him too.

“Red thinks he’s the best thing since sliced bread, but you didn’t hear that from me,” Frank says. “Girl I know would probably be completely enamored with him, she’s already head over heels for Spider-Man.”

Tony scoffs. “Well, tell her Spider-Man’s gonna be out and about real soon.”

“Yeah,” Frank says. “I will.”

~

Tony can tell Frank is talking more to Peter than he probably does to anybody in a single month, which also gets Matt talking more, too. Tony stays close, and listens, mostly to the way Peter laughs, the way he chatters on like he used to. They get churros with Daredevil and the Punisher, of all fucking things, and Peter is so hyped up on the car ride back that he can’t stop talking. 

“I just—I always felt like the news was doing the wrong thing with the Punisher, I knew they were hiding stuff because I knew he wouldn’t be doing the things he was doing for no reason, not that kind of guy, no way.” Peter sucks in a breath, and picks at the bag of popcorn Frank got him before they parted ways. “No, no, when—when someone like that is killing people, there’s—there’s gotta be a reason. He’s defensive, he’s not offensive. And with Matt as an influence, he’s—I mean, Frank’s girlfriend is one of Matt’s best friends—”

“Yeah, that’s what they said,” Tony says, rolling to a stop at the red light. He keeps an eye out, constantly paranoid. “They work together.”

“So he probably sees Matt a lot, and he’ll like. Have Matt’s influence. He probably already does.” Peter shoves a whole handful of popcorn in his mouth. “He doesn’t just—I mean. He doesn’t kill people just—because. He’s a good person.”

“You’re right,” Tony says, glancing over at him, worrying about Peter giving himself an aneurysm. “You’re right. I wouldn’t worry too much, he’s—Frank seems like he’s trying to stay off the radar right now.”

“Yeah,” Peter says, chewing. 

“You like hanging out with ‘em?” Tony asks, driving when the light turns green, merging into the left lane.

“Yeah,” Peter says. “A lot. But not more than you.”

Tony can’t help but smile, gripping the wheel a little tighter. He hits another red light and sighs, two away from his left turn. 

“Where are you going?” Peter asks. “Isn’t the tower like, that way? My depth perception is off but I still know my east and west and all that.”

Tony snorts. “Uh, we’re picking up May and Happy.”

“Uh _huh?_” Peter says, and Tony sees some popcorn fly out of his mouth. Anybody else would get yelled at. But for Peter, Tony will break out the little vacuum. 

“Yeah, she—still insisted on being nearby,” Tony says. “What can you do? Happy’s keeping her company, they’re fine. They’re eating nachos. They’re probably getting you takeout nachos. Wins all around.” 

He glances over, sees Peter reclining his chair. The kid gets a certain look in his eye then, a fondness that he doesn’t really have the time for a lot lately. He smiles at Tony, looks at ease, and Tony will literally let him meet with every single random ass superhero if it means he looks like this after, even just for a moment. Because Peter doesn’t get to chill out anymore, not with the horrors in his head, but for once, he looks _relaxed._

Someone beeps at Tony to get him to go.

“What?” Peter asks, as Tony keeps driving.

“Nothing,” Tony says, staring straight ahead.

_What the hell wouldn’t I do for this kid?_

~

A couple days go by, and the cat seems to be lifting Peter’s mood in a different way than any of the rest of them can. He talks to the cat, carries her around draped over his shoulder, and half the time they know he’s coming because they can hear Leia meowing and Droney #2 buzzing along and alerting Peter of his surroundings. 

Tony’s glad—glad, that Peter seems to be coping, that the nightmares are more few and far between, that Sam seems more and more optimistic after they talk. Tony draws up a list of hospitals that he actually trusts for May to contact when she’s ready to start working again, and they reach out to Peter’s school to make them aware of his “illness”, with notes from Helen and instructions to send his work to him if he doesn’t wind up showing up the first day. Tony gets Morgan’s classes ready too, and feels like he’s gonna fucking puke at the idea of her going out into the world while this lunatic is still out there. He has a mind to ask Happy to go with her until they catch him.

He just wants to kill this fucker already.

And it’s _those_ thoughts that are worrying him. But he doesn’t tell anybody, not after his own nightmares, not Pepper, not Rhodey, sure as fuck not Peter when he asks. This isn’t about him and his reactions to what happened to his kid. It’s about Peter and making him better. That’s it.

“We’re doing well with the words,” Shuri says, on the screen in front of Tony. “It’s all mind over matter, and he’s stronger than this Beck. It’s just repetition. We can take it right back. Roll over it and smooth it out.”

“Yeah,” Tony says, feeling strange and faraway. 

“Bucky’s a good little learner, so—”

“You think you’ll be able to come back soon?” Tony asks, glancing back at her. 

There’s so much going on behind her that he almost feels like it answers his question, that she’ll be perpetually busy and he was lucky she was even in town for Peter’s birthday. Lucky, and she chastised him at the time for trying to make things low key. _I was already on my way, Tony! My God!_ He’ll never hear the end of it. From anybody.

He deserves to hear about it forever, but that’s neither here nor there. He’s not gonna fuck up like that again. 

He hopes.

“Maybe,” Shuri says. “But Bucky is making good strides, in the meantime—”

“You know Pete likes you,” Tony says, giving her a little half-hearted smile. “And, uh, any kind of positivity for him right now—real good. Helps a lot.”

“I’ll try,” Shuri says, glancing over her shoulder. “Anything for him, huh? And I did promise to get him to Wakanda as soon as possible, so...”

“Maybe a little soon for this old man,” Tony says. “I can barely hold back a heart attack when I take him to the local park.”

“I get you,” Shuri says. “Time’s all you need, Tony, and you’ve got it. I know you can keep him safe. But I’ll check my schedule, alright? Try and get there again soon. Very soon.”

Tony’s watch buzzes with a message, from Happy. _CASTLE IS HERE AND IT’S IMPORTANT. SUB LEVEL._

“Alright,” Tony says, fast. “I’ll try and catch you after his next session.”

“Yes,” she says, nodding, as someone hands her something. “Til then.”

“Alright,” Tony says, a little too curt for his own liking, but another message comes through that makes this feel more urgent. 

_HE HAS ONE OF BECK’S PEOPLE._

Tony shoots out of his chair before Shuri completely ends the call, and he only briefly wonders if she sees him staggering away before his mind moves to other things. _Has one of Beck’s people._ That means alive. He has to be keeping him alive for a reason. To talk to Tony. To give Tony information. He said he would. He said he’d bring them by when he found them. And he found one. 

“Where are you?” Tony shouts, into his watch as he lumbers down the hallway.

“_Do you want me to send that message as a text or would you like me to call Happy?_” Friday asks. 

Tony’s mouth is dry. “Uh, text,” he says, trembling, afraid of Happy answering where Frank or whoever else can hear. He loads onto the elevator and leans back against the wall, hitting the sub level button and wishing he could get down there faster. 

If they have one of Beck’s people, they can find Beck. That’s it. That’s it. They’re on the fucking way. They’re gonna get him, they’re gonna get him, and then—

Tony squeezes his hands into fists.

“Chill the fuck out,” Tony says, recalling how they dragged him away in the hospital hallway, and the anger flowed through him then, too. Was he actually gonna try to fight those goddamn cops? It went through his head. It went through his head, a brief flash of thoughts, and maybe that was the beginning of all this.

Maybe he’s got an anger issue.

Is he gonna hulk the fuck out? He needs to talk to Bruce.

No, he’s not. 

He’s just gonna kill Beck.

_No._ None of them would be able to look at him the same again, no matter what that asshole did. Peter—as much as he was standing up for Frank, Peter’s endgame does not include killing. Even for the worst people. Even for people who try to kill him. He _saved_ Toomes. He wouldn’t want Beck dead, even after what he’s done. And he definitely wouldn’t want Tony to do it. 

Nobody would look at him the same. Shit, being—who he is—he’d have to pay for it. He’d lose all of them. He’d lose Peter _again_, in more than one way,

“Stop, stop, stop,” Tony says to himself, as he finally reaches sub level. “Task at hand. C’mon.”

The doors open, and Tony moves out into the dim hallway, fear immediately striking him about where Peter is. He swallows hard, and gets another message from Happy.

_113A._

Tony chews on his lower lip, full of anxious energy, and he quickly dips into the back corner, where the light above him buzzes. They don’t use this level a whole lot, especially recently—it’s mostly for interrogations, and a lot of the time they don’t get to that stage, and if they do, they’re not around here. But he didn’t mean for the place to look like a goddamn horror movie, though that might be a good vibe for what they’ve got going on right now.

He doesn’t want whoever’s here hearing Peter’s voice, so he quickly grabs his phone out of his pocket and dials the kid’s number. 

Peter answers on the first ring. “Tony?” he asks, sounding a little worried. “Where are you?”

“Just making sure you and May are getting the food ready,” Tony says, recalling their plans. “I’ll be up in a couple. The cat _can’t_ have fajitas but I got her some special tuna, it’s in the fridge.”

Peter snorts. “Okay,” he says. “And yeah we’re doing it, Leia’s helping.”

“I’m sure,” Tony says, peering around the wall when he hears a slamming noise. He feels a mixture of worry and sweet satisfaction about the idea of Frank beating up whoever he’s got in there.

“When are Morgan and Pepper getting home?” Peter asks.

“Hour or so,” Tony says, the anxiety washing over him again. Gotta warn Pep about the fucking evil doer they’ve got on the sub level. “Morgan doesn’t like the—”

“Green peppers, I know,” Peter says. “We left them out.”

Tony blows out a breath. “Love you, kid. Be right up.”

“Love you too,” Peter says, as the cat meows something fierce in the background. They both hang up, and Tony puts his phone away, shifting into another gear. He doesn’t let the anger overwhelm him, but it takes center stage.

He moves down the hallway, and opens up the door to 113A.

He can see immediately that the middle aged man they’ve got in here has received the Frank Castle treatment, on his knees between Frank and Happy and half beaten to a pulp. Matt is there too, standing behind them, and the man looks up at Tony when they walk in.

“Oh Jesus Christ,” the man says, as Tony gets a vague flash of familiarity that flickers and dies before he can really latch onto it. “So we’re gonna kill me, huh? If Stark is here, we’re gonna kill me.”

Tony notes that Happy’s knuckles are bloody, too. “Who the hell is this guy?” Tony asks, fast, taking a few steps forward with his hands on his hips. He’s trying not to shake and tremble, because he doesn’t want to give himself away. His fear, his rage. The amount of love in his heart that’s got him standing here, ready to fucking kill someone.

“You don’t remember me?” the man asks. He laughs a little bit, and jolts away when Frank grabs onto his collar with a firm hand.

Frank isn’t shaking at all.

“Should I?” Tony asks. “Have you made a mark on my life? I feel like I’d remember if you did.” He’s made a mark, alright, if he had anything to do with taking Peter.

“I worked for you, way back,” the man says. “Around the time you—came back from your little cave vacation. I was around for Stane’s big rampage, and then I dipped out a couple years later because you were such a shit—”

Frank hits him, clear across the face, with a measured and perfected cross. The man would have fallen on his head if it wasn’t for Happy keeping him half upright, and the man rolls his eyes, breathing hard and freely bleeding from his nose, now. “This prick’s name is William,” Frank says, looming over him like a steely shadow. “And he’s got some things he needs to say to you.”

“What d’you want me to do, apologize?” William asks, nasally, only half-heartedly looking up at Frank like he’s afraid to face him head on. “I have no idea what—”

“Tell him what you told us,” Matt says, too calm, too calm to even be in the same room as the thoughts in Tony’s head. 

William sighs, trying to square his shoulders, and his eyes flick up to meet Tony’s, bloodshot and tired. “I was working with Quentin Beck. Me and a bunch of others you aliena—”

Frank reels back to clock him again, and William holds up his hands in his direction, wincing and reeling away. “Alright, alright, Jesus—a bunch of other assholes who made a very _big_ mistake,” William says.

“That’s more like it,” Frank says. 

“We were trying to make a name for ourselves, but really it was—it was him, he was trying to make a name for himself and he was using us. He wanted to trick the kid, humiliate him and you by doing that, and take your place, but the whole damn thing just—fell apart. Kid was too smart. Everyone saw Quentin and what he was doing and he just—lost his mind, plain and simple. He didn’t tell any of us he was gonna take the kid. He just did it. He just did it.”

Tony doesn’t know why the fuck he didn’t think about this before, but it clicks for him in that moment that this guy and everybody else Beck worked with know Peter’s identity. His eye twitches and he tries to swallow over the lump in his throat. He has no goddamn idea what to do about that. 

“How many people worked with you?” Tony says, hardly recognizing his own voice.

“About fifteen,” William says, and Tony sways with the weight of that. William shakes his head and looks away from him, towards the wall behind Happy. “He did _not_ tell us what he was gonna do until he just fucking—showed up with this kid all drugged up and half dead and he told us we had to help him transport him to the States—”

“What did you do?” Tony says. Trembling.

“He made Billy fly him and the kid in this little private airplane that was barely checked because he paid off the officials, but he hid the kid in the walls anyway,” William says, shaking his head. “He got back to New York and we all just—we all just left him, so he wouldn’t fucking kill us. Because we helped him get back on the threat of fucking death but then we—scattered, because—I don’t know how to explain this, because I doubt you remember him either, but Quentin was—a lunatic. We all knew it, it was hard not to know, but he kept himself in check most of the time and he was charming and smart but when it all went downhill and he took the kid he just—became someone else. Worse. Much worse.”

Tony hangs his head. He can’t stop shaking, can’t stop—thinking—and he bites down hard on his lower lip until he tastes blood. 

“You knew. That he’d kidnapped a child. And you said nothing.”

William scoffs, and now Tony feels like hitting him. “Listen, I know, we’re all—we’re not great people. It was—I regret it, now—”

“You regret it because we found you,” Happy says, pure anger in his voice.

“Well, that, and—”

Tony stumbles forward and punches him square across the jaw. He uses the iron arm to do it, without even thinking, and he sees the way it opens up the guy’s cheek, new blood spilling. It reminds Tony of the dream, how easily he choked the life out of Beck with it. He could do it to this guy, right now. He could. He wants to. He could hit him and hit him and hit him and never feel it.

William bounces back in Frank’s and Happy’s hands, and Matt walks around and stands by Tony’s side, a hand on his arm.

“Tony,” Matt says, close to his him.

“It’s okay,” Tony says, seeing red, the world shaking. 

“Okay,” William says, hands up in Tony’s direction now. “Okay. I get it. The kid means a lot to you—”

“The kid is my kid,” Tony says, wrenching against Matt’s hold, his whole mind swirling with everything he was trying to hold back. “That kid—is like my _son_—and Beck carved out his fucking eye.”

William’s face changes, and Tony thinks he might actually see some genuine remorse there. 

“Jesus, Stark, none of us knew about that. He went rogue. We ran from him but he wouldn’t have let us find him anyway, once he established himself. He was in New York, that’s all I know, that he was in the state. I don’t know where. None of us do, I swear.”

Tony reaches up, pinching the bridge of his own nose and closing his eyes. “You don’t know where he is now?” he asks.

“No,” William says. He sighs, heavily, and winces. Tony hopes he’s got a couple broken ribs. “It was all about hurting you. That’s all he wanted to do in the end, and he did it by hurting your kid. I don’t know if he’s still hanging around, I’ve got no facts whatsoever, but if he’s still anything like he was the last time I saw him...he’s probably looking for any kind of way to get him back. Because that would hurt you more. Having...gotten him back, only to lose him again.”

Tony is glad Matt has a hold of him, because he feels like he might collapse after those comments, break down in a puddle of useless limbs and electric anger. 

He’s still holding onto his own nose, still not looking, still tremoring with the need to do fucking _something_, when he hears William take another hard hit, enough that he crumples to the ground in a heap. 

Tony looks up, and sees Happy still following through with the motion of the punch, and Frank looking down at the man Happy just knocked out. 

Tony wipes his hand over his face, trying to breathe. He doesn’t know if this helped or made things worse, but he feels like his whole world is exploding and he sort of needs to see Peter immediately. He pulls away from Matt, patting his arm in some half-hearted attempt at something, and he heads for the door.

“Don’t tell me what you do with him,” Tony says, turning his back. Normally he might add _don’t kill him._

But he doesn’t.

~

Maybe he hugs Peter when he gets up there, enough that the cat transfers herself from Peter’s shoulder to Tony’s. Maybe Tony stares at him all throughout dinner, enough that he loses the trail of the conversation more than one time. 

Maybe. Maybe. Maybe.

Tony feels the weight of his guilt all over him, and he’s gotta tell Peter. He doesn’t know if it’s the right decision, or the wrong one, he doesn’t know shit anymore, but he just knows not telling him feels stifling and he’s gotta change that. 

“Can I steal Pete for a second or two here?” Tony says, looking over the couch at Pepper, Morgan and May. Morgan is already asleep in May’s arms, and _Groundhog Day_ is about an hour in.

“Everything good?” Peter asks, looking at him. Leia is leaning on his leg, half asleep, purring loud enough to rival the movie. 

Tony can’t help it, and looks at the eye patch. It all feels raw suddenly, maybe because William brought it into horrible focus. Even Beck’s insane friends and cohorts didn’t want anything to do with him. How he treated Peter. What he was—planning to do.

“Yeah,” Tony says, almost terse, and he tries to settle it with a smile. 

They both get up, Peter gently nudging Leia towards the nearest pillow.

“Want us to pause it?” Pepper asks.

“No, I’ve seen it a million times,” Peter says. 

“Same,” Tony says, clearing his throat.

“Maybe bring the milanos and we can sway Morgan back to consciousness,” Pepper says, scooting down on the couch and fluffing the pillows behind her head. 

“Oh, grab me the lemon cookies,” May says, as they walk around the back of the couch. She looks at Pepper, narrowing her eyes. “I feel like we’re always eating.”

Tony lets himself snort at that, and Pepper’s hummed reply, and he leads Peter back towards his room. He still feels half like he’s gonna throw up, and they get right inside the doorway before Tony turns around, looking at Peter’s face.

“Uh, this doesn’t seem like...everything’s good,” Peter says, slowly.

Tony cocks his head, panic making him feel stiff. “Uh, it’s not—it’s not _bad_. It’s just—I don’t know if new is the right word.”

Peter narrows his eye. “Tony—”

“We found one of Beck’s guys,” Tony blurts out. “One of the guys that was working with him. William.”

Tony tells the kid everything he knows, everything William said, almost word for word, because the words and phrases are still floating around in his head, echoing, torturing him. Tony says it all like it’s a secret, like it’s something he’s been keeping for years instead of hours. Peter’s face barely changes, and by the time he gets to the part where Happy knocked William out and Tony didn’t specify to keep him alive, Peter isn’t looking at him anymore.

“And I don’t know if I should have...told you any of that,” Tony says. “But it—it didn’t feel right holding onto it, bud, I felt like I should—share it, with you. And I’m sorry if I shouldn’t have.”

Peter takes one step closer to him and looks down at their feet. “I, uh—no, it’s—it’s not—” He glances up at something that Tony can’t hear or see, and he shudders a little bit. “I never saw those guys,” Peter continues, clearing his throat. “Well. Supposedly, they were—in the bar Beck and I were in, one of his—illusions, before everything happened—but I wasn’t—paying attention to anybody, so I didn’t—see them. Beck said they were following me, too. But I—didn’t see them.”

Tony hates the look on his face, hates that he contributed to putting it there. “Pete—”

“I wanted to tell you,” Peter says, sucking in a breath and looking up at him again. “I wanted to—tell you.” His lower lip trembles, and he looks like he’s in pure pain. “I, uh, there was—I don’t know why I’m saying this. I don’t know why I’m saying this now. Just—hearing about this guy, you saying you wanted to tell me—and thinking about—thinking—” He closes his eye and shakes his head, and Tony reaches out and grips his arm.

“Whatever it is, you don’t have to tell me,” Tony says. “You don’t.”

“I escaped, once,” Peter says, in a rush of breath. “Before I. Actually escaped.”

Tony stares. He can feel the blood drain from his face. He wants to say _what?_ but he loses control of the English language. And his face.

“Don’t freak out,” Peter says, teary, looking put-upon and exhausted all of a sudden, exactly opposite of how he’s been all day. “Because half—no, _most_ of the time when Beck said shit, he didn’t follow up. He’d pretend he never said it so I’d feel crazy, which was...another form of torture. But one of the days, he...he brought up Morgan.”

“What?” Tony does say, then, a buzzing in his ears, his heart clenching. “What?”

“Said he’d love to...have both of Tony Stark’s kids, and see how you liked that,” Peter says, a tear falling down his cheek.

Tony sways. Feels. Feels sick. He’s still holding onto Peter’s arm and is probably holding him too tightly, but he can’t let go, he can’t—he can’t—

“He left, after that, and all day I was in pure agony, just fucking—panicking, worrying, I broke my own arm trying to get out of my handcuffs—”

“Jesus,” Tony says, really afraid he’s actually gonna puke, in agony hearing about Peter’s pain, and Beck’s—everything. His pure _nerve_ even mentioning Morgan just to torture Peter.

“But he came back and just—pretended he’d never said it. Tried to gasp at me and act all high and mighty like I’d come up with it and how awful I was and it was just—one of those days where I just—felt like such shit, Tony, I just hated him so much and I had to—I had to get back to you, back to May, and make sure you—make sure I was here to protect Morgan.”

Tony nods, crying himself now, and all he wants to do is hug him, run and hug Morgan, but Peter hasn’t even finished his story yet.

“So the next day he drugged me, worse than normal, and put me into an illusion where I—where—” He trails off, shaking his head, the worry line in the middle of his brows pulling taut. “Doesn’t matter. It was bad. And I was so messed up that he just left me lying there on the ground when he went out to get food. And I waited—I was so messed up, my head was...mush, but I knew I had to...try. So I waited, and then I—broke the lock on the door and got out. Took a few tries, but I—I had enough time to work on it.”

“Holy shit,” Tony says, shaking his head at him. “Peter.”

“I was so scared but I just kept going—but he—he made an illusion around the perimeter of the place and it was like—literal hell on earth but I kept going—and I—I don’t know how, I really don’t, I just kept picturing your faces and thinking about Morgan and I just—I got out onto the street. I got past it and I—I got out onto the street.”

Tony’s heart is beating in his ears. Heart attack, he’s gonna have a heart attack. He can barely breathe. He knows this ends badly. He knows. It feels rancid in his mouth.

“But he was there,” Peter says, voice breaking, and he looks down again. “He grabbed me—there were people around and he—he pretended I was drunk, he was saying all this shit, like I had a problem, he had to get me to some meetings, and no one—no one even looked. No one looked, no one suspected a thing. And he dragged me back inside and he—”

Tony grips Peter’s shoulder and tries to be strong for him, even though he feels like he’s breaking apart, piece by piece. 

“He dragged me inside and he—he cuffed my hands behind my back and he—he made a noose and he—just hauled me up into the rafters.” Peter shakes his head and steps closer. “It’s—it was—it’s one of the things I have nightmares about the most. I couldn’t—he almost let—he was so mad, he was so mad, he just—I was kicking and trying so hard and he just—he just stared at me, he just—”

Peter is working himself up into a panic, and Tony can feel the terror in his voice, sharp enough to cut them both, and Tony can’t wait anymore and tugs him against him, cradling him close. He doesn’t think about what Peter just said. He can’t. He can’t, if he wants to stay upright. He can’t, if he wants to try and pull himself back from the point of no return. 

He can’t. He can’t. He _can’t._

“You’re not there,” Tony says, running his fingers through Peter’s hair. “You’re not. He doesn’t have you. You’re safe. You’re here.”

Peter cries, huddling against him, and Tony kisses his head. 

“I love you so much, Peter, I can’t ever properly tell you how much, there’s—there aren’t any words for it, kid. You and Morgan, you’re—you’re my kids, I’ll do anything to protect you, anything, I’d die for the two of you and I’m just—I’m just so fucking sorry I failed you—”

“You didn’t,” Peter breathes. “You didn’t.” He twists Tony’s shirt in his hand. “I wouldn’t—I wouldn’t have gotten through one single day if it wasn’t for you, thinking about—thinking about getting back to you.”

Tony can’t agree, but he’s not gonna argue with him, not right now. He’s gonna hold him, he’s gonna be there. He’s gonna be there from now on. 

~

It’s been a day since Peter admitted about the escape to Tony, and he’s been off ever since. The hallucinations are different, like they’re sewn into the world around him, like they’re part of it, stuck here, forever. He asks to talk to Sam, but it doesn’t help because Beck stands behind him the whole time and Peter is too afraid to tell him. Leia is the only thing that makes Peter feel normal, because she just bumps against him, curls up close, and wants food. She’s straightforward. She can sense his moods, and she seems to purr louder, loving him more when he’s sad. It’s calming, and he lays in bed with the cat and feels like he’s gonna slip down into the ether and wither away. 

He feels an itch, under his skin. He doesn’t know what it is. What it wants.

He feels—like he’s broken.

Doing the wrong thing. 

_Not_ doing the right thing.

He knows what it is. What Beck screams at him. What Beck writes on the walls in blood, Peter’s blood. 

_SPIDER-MAN._

Peter hasn’t looked at the news since the whole Tony arrested bullshit, but he feels a draw to it now, feels like he needs to grab his phone, search and search, see how Queens in particular is doing. The walls are crumbling, shifting like they’re gonna fall in on him, and Peter swallows hard, breathing slow. He knows it’s not real. He knows it’s not.

May is in the easy chair reading a book, and Tony is down the hall facetiming with someone about Morgan’s upcoming school year. Peter thinks about school, and that makes Beck shriek with laughter. 

Beck seems taller. More imposing. Less put together. More like he looked towards the end. Wild-eyed. Beard unkempt. Hair every which way. Manic. Grinning, grinning, grinning.

Leia flops onto her side and leans up against Peter’s chest, peering upside down at him. She makes a meow that doesn’t really meet the air properly, like a silent question, and sometimes Peter is a little freaked out by how smart she is. He pets her, scratching her back, and she scoots herself closer, closing her eyes. 

“Are Ned and MJ coming soon?” May asks, without looking up at him.

Peter absent-mindedly touches the eye patch. He’s wearing another red one today. “Uh, I think they’ll be here for dinner,” he says, closing his eye when the walls drop. He can hear them rebuilding themselves. 

_GOD YOU’RE JUST—THERE ARE NO WORDS FOR YOU, PETEY PIE. AND I DON’T MEAN THAT IN A GOOD WAY._

He’s only been laughing all day, laughing and screaming like he used to do when he got really pissed. But it’s like his voice is being projected through a loudspeaker, in a stadium, and Peter pops his eye back open to see if May heard it. One day, he’s sure they’ll hear him. He’s sure Beck will break through the fucking walls and be here, full and flesh and hands coming for his throat.

Peter can hear clear as day.

What he wanted him hear.

_I’LL ALWAYS BE WITH YOU._

He’s never going away. Never. As much as they all want him to. 

May doesn’t move, she doesn’t hear, and Peter stares over at his phone. It feels like ants, all over him. It feels like spiders. 

The amount he’s holding himself back feels like he’s gonna break his own bones again. Grind his teeth to dust. 

“How’s she doing?” May asks, and she does look up this time. “Ned doesn’t feel like a third wheel, right? We can’t let that happen. We have to get him a girlfriend too.”

Peter manages a small smile. “He’s fine,” he says. “He adapts. And MJ isn’t—the type. To, uh, leave people out. Especially Ned.” Peter thinks about the month they spent together, without him. He doesn’t like to imagine it. Trying to align their feelings with his own, at the same time. 

He runs his hand over his face and tries to chill out, but he can’t, he can’t—he’s in the spiral now. He’s over the edge, and he doesn’t know what to do to ride it out. He needs to stop crying in front of them. He’s tired of it.

Beck walks over and sits on the edge of the bed. He looks so normal, so familiar, so _corporeal_ that Peter just stares, petrified. Beck leans his forearms on his knees, shaking his head. 

“_You’re not going anywhere, Peter_,” Beck says, quiet, ominous. “_You’re not even really here._”

Peter doesn’t look at him. 

He grabs his phone.

And makes the mistake of opening up social media.

He sees the carjackings, he sees the robberies, he sees the rapes, the kidnappings, the murders, the memorial pages and the GoFundMe’s and the wishes that things were different. It’s been a month but there’s enough news to look like it was a year, and he searches and searches and searches until his face is pale and he can hardly breathe.

And then he keeps searching.

He demolishes article after article, demands more and more details, remembers names of the dead and names of the people they left behind, people he could have gotten to if he was out there, if he was active, if he was even a shadow of his former self. The former self they’ve come to rely on, the one they look up to, the one they’re thinking about when the pain starts, when the fear gets to be too much. 

But he never came. 

He never got there.

He didn’t save them.

He couldn’t save himself, either. He’s still there, in that warehouse, drugged up and strapped to that table as Beck picks out his next instrument of torture. 

Beck is still at the end of the bed, regarding him. But the room isn’t collapsing anymore, there aren’t voids and screaming and rushing blackness. It’s like he’s actually there. Like he’s here. This close to May. Danger. 

Peter closes his eye and wishes him away.

He opens it again and doesn’t look, doesn’t seek him out, but he switches to Twitter on his phone and searches for Spider-Man.

There are plenty of tweets wishing him well, praying for his speedy recovery. But there are also plenty begging him to come back, begging for his help, begging for his protection. 

There’s a photo tweeted of a little girl holding a Spider-Man plush, one of the limited edition ones wearing the iron spider suit. She’s sitting on a fire escape and gazing out into the night, her legs hanging over the side. It’s captioned _SHE JUST WANTS SPIDEY BACK_ and it might be the final thing to break Peter’s brain. He stares at it, and can’t think straight.

He can’t think at all.

It’s a mixture of insanity and need. The need to help. The need to hurt. To be hurt, for being such a fucking failure. But maybe he can help in the process. Get his due, but help someone too.

“May,” Peter says, his mind already planning. A mind that isn’t his own. A mind that’s being carried away by something bigger than him.

She looks up at him, like she can hear the tremor in his voice, but he can’t stop himself now.

Beck isn’t here anymore.

The danger is out there.

“Yeah, baby?” May asks, closing her book.

He talks without thinking. Like it isn’t him talking. “Don’t you wanna spend time with Happy?” Peter asks, clicking his phone closed and leaning on his elbow. “I know there’s...something serious going on, you guys aren’t...subtle at all about its seriousness.”

He can see her blush, and she rolls her eyes, smiling a little bit. “I wanna spend time with you, honey.”

“You should...spend time with him,” Peter says. He picks Leia up gently as he nudges himself up higher on the bed, leaning against the pillows. He rests the cat on his chest and she quickly readjusts herself, still purring. He leaves his hands on top of her, scratching her back. “I think I’m gonna...sleep. Or read or something. So you don’t need to be in here. Go—spend some time with your—whatever he is.”

“Is this your way of telling me you don’t want me in here?” May asks, raising her eyebrows at him.

Peter reaches up and touches his eye patch, wanting to take it off, but not with her in the room. He knows she’s seen it, but not recently, not with it all cleaned up. Now it looks like a mistake. “No,” he says, trying to control any tremors. “I love you.”

She gets up, walking over, planting a kiss on his forehead. “I love you too, baby,” she says. “Call me if you need me.”

As soon as she’s out of the room he closes his eye tight and cries, the plan formulating in his head. He knows every inch of this building, Tony’s shown him the specs, he’s got clearance, he knows all the codes.

He has to do something.

He has to be Spider-Man.

~

Tony watches as Michelle and Ned get off of the elevator, dropped off by a surprisingly eager Bucky this time instead of Happy, and Tony wonders why he didn’t come up, too. They give Tony a brief wave and head directly to Peter’s room. Tony hasn’t been in there in probably too long, and Morgan is hard at work on a new drawing beside him, Pepper holed up in the office on this floor, preparing the proposals and emergency aspects for Peter’s coalition. Tony wants to get it up and running, off the ground, so the kid can have that, can see it being put into action, can see it working and benefiting people. 

“You good for two seconds?” Tony asks, running his hand up and down Morgan’s back.

“Tell me if Petey’s awake,” she says, not taking her eyes off her drawing. 

“Yes ma’am,” Tony says, leaning down to kiss the top of her head. He doesn’t think about Beck mentioning her to Peter. He doesn’t think about that.

He struggles to his feet, remembering that May was unceremoniously kicked out of the kid’s room earlier, and she’s down the hall eating lunch with Happy. Tony gets to worrying once again that he’s being overbearing with Peter, despite the fact that they need each other and it’s an open, acknowledged thing. But he remembers the birthday party from hell and can’t help but worry that he’ll make another misstep, that he’ll do something else to hurt Peter’s feelings or make him feel less than what he truly is. Tony Stark has plenty of history with mistakes, and he can easily fall back into that pattern if he isn’t too careful. 

His own anxiety is like walls, all around him, closing in.

Ned and Michelle are coming out of Peter’s room by the time Tony gets there, and Peter isn’t with them.

“What’s wrong?” Tony asks, narrowing his eyes.

“He’s not in there,” Ned says.

“Just the cat,” Michelle says, crossing her arms over her chest. “Sleeping in the middle of the bed.”

Tony’s heart jolts, and he feels rooted to the spot. “Uh—is his phone in there?”

They both give him a horrified look, like they know he’s unaware of where Peter is just by that question, and Michelle trudges back inside and looks. “Yeah,” she says, when she reappears. “It’s plugged in on the bedside table.”

“Lemme see if he’s in the bathroom,” Ned says, rushing back into the room.

Michelle turns around to look at Tony, but he rubs at his eye, trying to maintain his composure. 

“He’s not in here!” Ned calls.

“Okay,” Tony says, voice rough with panic. “Let’s check the bathroom down the hall.”

“Why don’t you know where he is?” Michelle asks, catching up with him as he starts down the hallway and around the corner, thankfully not attracting Morgan’s attention.

“He wanted space, earlier, so we were giving him space,” Tony says. They get to the bathroom door, but it’s open, the room empty.

It feels like all the air is sucked out of his lungs, the world turning raw and his own body seizing in a fit of fear. He doesn’t want to freak out in front of the kids but it isn’t like Peter to go somewhere without telling them first, and he didn’t tell them, Tony would remember. He sways, trying to maintain—any semblance of sanity, and his last line of defense is to seek out May before he starts ringing the alarm bells.

Alarm bells, because—

Because there’s danger, because—

Because he’s gone—

_No, no. Can’t be. _

Tony swallows hard, nearly losing his lunch, and he starts further down the hall without communicating to Ned and Michelle what’s going on. He can hear May’s laughter and Happy’s voice, and he turns into the room, hoping Peter is sitting there with them.

But he isn’t. It’s just the two of them, and they look up at him like they’ve been caught.

“What’s wrong?” May asks, fast. Like there’s a nightmare she needs to soothe, or a hallucination she needs to reassure against. 

“Pete’s not in his room,” Tony says.

“What?” Happy asks.

May doesn’t have to say anything for him to know she’s on the same page as he is—he can read it on her face, that the news isn’t something she expected. She quickly gets out of her seat, her eyes intent. “Where is he?” she asks. 

Tony doesn’t want to say he doesn’t know. He feels like he might vomit if he does that. He quickly turns and moves back into the living room, and he’s got four people following him now, a herd of anxious energy and dismay. He’s shaking, and his legs are screaming out for him to stop running around and rest, but Peter isn’t here. Peter isn’t here.

Tony gets to one of Friday’s screens.

“Fri,” he says, not sounding at all normal but too determined to care. “Is Peter still inside the tower?”

“_No, Boss,_” Friday says, and Tony nearly tips over, the four of them talking over each other behind him. 

“Where is he?” Tony yells, ears burning red, his whole body a shout of liquid fear. 

“_He left about thirty minutes ago, through the sub level, taking with him the newly finished Scarlet Spider suit._”

The air blows out again and Tony feels like he’s choking on it. He coughs, nearly stumbling on nothing again, and emotions cross wires in his head. He doesn’t know what to feel. “Why the hell didn’t you alert me to that, Friday?”

“_He has clearances, Boss, he overrode my codes and conditions._”

Tony covers his entire face with his hand. He can’t think. They’re all still talking. Where the fuck would the kid be going in a suit? He’s not ready to be Spider-Man yet, and that particular suit is not ready to compensate for his missing eye. None of this—it isn’t right. They didn’t discuss it, and it must have been born of some trepidation, some nagging guilt, and Tony doesn’t think about the roof, or the trigger words, except he totally does, he absolutely does, they overwhelm him, they drown him, they set off his fucking hysteria.

“Can we track him?” May asks, while Tony completely shuts down.

“_The tracking on the suit is turned off, Mrs. Parker. An active choice on Peter’s part._”

“Oh my God,” May breathes. Tony isn’t looking but he can see Michelle move closer to her through his fingers, and this is his fault, this is his fault, he doesn’t know how, but it is, it’s his fucking fault.

Peter’s gone again. He’s gone again. Out there, with Beck, in danger. Beck could snatch him up again and they could disappear, and they had him and they know, they know what Beck did, they know, they heard the details, they saw the scars and the trauma, they heard the rattle of the nightmares, and now he could get Peter again, after this, after everything, and Peter was afraid of his anger, that story he told Tony the other day, and Beck would be angry after this, after having lost him, and having him back, he could put that anger to use, he could do things worse than he ever did before, and they could disappear, never to be found again, and he failed him, Tony failed him, he fucking failed Peter after all the promises he whispered and sent into the goddamn universe, pressed into Peter’s hands—

“Listen,” May says, suddenly on him, gripping his shoulders, turning him towards her. He can see the sorrow in her eyes, too, but she’s infinitely stronger than he is. “We’re gonna find him. We will. We’re gonna find him.”

Tony stares at her. He doesn’t know how many times he can fail a family. He doesn’t know how long he’ll stay in their good graces before they kick him out forever. But he nods, anyway. 

~

They watch the security cameras, see Peter selecting the suit, struggling to put it on, and then actively leaving. It seemed like his drone tried to stop him, but Peter gave some kind of command and it stood down. Tony tried to get a good look at the kid’s expression, tried to compare it to how he looked when he ventured up to the roof, but his own fear is clouding everything. All he sees is Peter’s face, before he put the mask on. He kept rubbing his eye socket over the patch before he ditched it all together.

Tony holds it in his hands now, reverently, like a lost relic, a final reminder of someone who’s no longer here.

He wants to lock himself away and cry until he can’t anymore. The tears keep finding him, and he wipes them away before they overwhelm him, before they become too much, and Pepper keeps looking at him like she knows. Like she knows he’s close to falling apart.

Everyone goes around the city, every which way, while Tony, Michelle, Pepper and Morgan remain at the tower. Ned and May are out with the search parties, divided into teams of two, while Tony combs over the hundreds of cameras out in the city with Michelle by his side. Pepper is making calls, keeping close with their contacts, and Morgan sits in a silence that Tony isn’t used to, coming from her. He’s got an internet feed of every mention of Spider-Man scrolling up and down the side of the screen. No current mentions, not yet.

“He couldn’t have gotten far,” Tony says, looking at street after street, face after face. 

“We should go out there,” Michelle says. “Go on foot.”

“We’re sort of like the eyes in the sky,” Tony says, trying to be normal, trying to stay sane, but his heart is beating irregularly. It feels like he’s simply staving off a heart attack because there’s no time for it, no room in the schedule. “We’ll go in a little bit,” he says to her. “I just—I wanna—”

“You wanna keep your eyes on everything,” she says. “Be here when he gets back.”

“Yeah,” Tony says, to both. He wants to be everywhere at once. And nowhere, somehow, too, but that’s more because he believes he deserves to be wiped from the face of the earth. 

She sighs, and leans closer to him, the closest thing to a comforting presence he’s gonna get while Pepper is on the phone. “I feel like—the Spider-Man suit says something. Like, if this was some weird thing where he wasn’t himself and it was Beck’s doing, he—he would have just gone. As he was, on his own. But he eluded everyone, and overrode codes, and found a suit. He’s—we all know Peter, and sitting around being...catered to...just isn’t his thing. As much as he may deserve it or need it. This—feels like he wants to help. I feel like he was thinking too much about how he hasn’t been helping, and he—went to help.”

“He’s not ready to help,” Tony says, swiping away a tear that slips down his cheek. “He’s not.” Peter isn’t a prisoner in the tower, but he isn’t ready to go, either. He needs someone with him. He needs to be safe. There’s something wrong here, he wasn’t thinking, he wasn’t thinking.

“When does Peter ever do things for himself?” she asks. “When does he ever do things as they should be done? As long as they’re right, he’s doing them. As long as he’s helping people. He’d break ten bones on the way down but he’d be fine with it if he saved people.”

“He needs to put himself—he needs—he has to—” Tony can’t even fucking talk, and he leans down, pressing his forehead into his fist. “You’re right.”

“I’m freaking out too,” she says.

“You’re a lot more composed,” he says, with a sigh, and he glances up at the cameras again. Everyone Peter surrounds himself with is strong and upright, except for Tony. Tony’s a goddamn mess.

“I think we should go out there and look, because it’ll feel more like we’re up and about and doing something, you know?” Michelle says.

He didn’t do enough before. He didn’t do enough. He let that happen, and he can’t let this happen. He’s gotta take control of this, because as much as Peter wants to help, he’s not ready. He’s not ready to be out there yet. He’s gotta let them take care of him until he’s one hundred percent. 

And there’s danger. There’s so much danger, with the kid out there, and Beck too. And all those others, who know who Spider-Man is. 

“Okay,” Tony says, feeling antsy as fuck. He gets to his feet. “Okay, let’s go, lemme just tell Pep—”

“_Boss, there’s a video coming through from a secure server,_” Friday says. “_I can’t track the source, there are too many walls up._”

Tony’s heart clamors. “Let it through.”

The video comes up on the screen, and Tony—Tony can’t—can’t breathe—

“Jesus Christ,” Pepper says, her phone clattering to the ground as she rushes over, yanking Morgan up and spiriting her out of the room.

It’s Peter, on the screen. Hands chained above his head so his arms are stretched up, his skin littered with welts, wrists raw where the cuffs are holding him. His face is bloody, a thick black band wrapped tight around his mouth, and his body is wracked with muffled sobs, tear stains on his dirty cheeks. There’s blood in his hair, a long cut on his neck just above where a tattered t-shirt sits too big on his shoulders.

Beck laughs, somewhere in the background. It’s unmistakable. 

The world is dark. 

Tony falls backwards, onto the couch, his despair washing over him in goosebumps and pinpricks. He hears William’s voice—

_—he’s probably looking for any kind of way to get him back. Because that would hurt you more. Having...gotten him back, only to lose him again—_

He’s done it. He’s done it. He let this happen. Beck has Peter again. He’s got him. Tony can’t breathe. His Peter, that fucking monster has him. Again. He’s hurting him again, and Tony can’t do anything about it. Can’t do anything about it but sit here in horror and rage, sit here and cry, mourn what he couldn’t stop.

Failure, failure, a fucking failure.

Again, again, again.

Tony is in between wanting to lay down, fucking die, and wanting to destroy everything in the room, everything in the tower, everything everywhere. Tear apart New York brick by brick.

“This is old,” Michelle says, through her tears. “Tony. This is old. He’s got both eyes. He has both eyes, this isn’t now. It isn’t now.” She leans down, latching onto his shoulder. “It’s not now. It’s old. It’s old.”

Tony is loath to look at it again but he glances up, and sees that—she’s right. Peter looks right up into the camera, his eyes full of fear and anger and hurt—two eyes. Two.

“Friday,” Tony croaks. “Turn it off.”

The screen clicks black. 

“It’s old,” Michelle says again, collapsing down next to him. “He doesn’t have him again. He doesn’t. If he did, he’d show us new footage. He’d flaunt it.”

“He’s teasing us,” Tony says, his mouth dry, his desperation teaming throughout his body. “He’s gotta know the kid is out there.”

“What’s going on?” Pepper asks, coming back around the corner, holding Morgan into her shoulder. “What’s happening?”

“Nothing,” Tony says, trying to quell the defeat in his voice. Seeing that took everything out of him, and he feels like he felt on that battlefield, when he thought he was wasting away, when he was close to death and he thought it might finally take him, after all the times it tried. That’s how he feels, now. He hadn’t had much imagery to go with everything he knew, other than what he saw that first night, but now there’s this, and even though he knows it’s old, he has a hard time not imagining it happening right now. Because Peter isn’t here for him to see, for him to hug and talk to. He’s not here, he’s out there, and the timing of this is more than a little fucking peculiar. 

He feels like there are barbs in him. Like someone is slicing his heart up while it’s still inside him. He feels like he’s on fire.

“Let’s go,” Pepper says, insistent. “Let’s go find him. Now. Now, Tony.”

She doesn’t even know that it’s old, or at least he thinks she doesn’t, but she still sounds like that. Why does everyone believe in him? Why do they think him capable?

Because here, with this, he has to be. He failed before. He can’t fail again.

He’s gotta get Peter back.

~

Michelle goes with Pepper and Morgan, and Tony adds Natasha to their team so he can feel like they’ve got the person who’d protect them most. 

Tony steps into a suit for the first time since he almost died in one, and it doesn’t explode on impact or crumple around him. It’s nanotech, from all those years ago, and it feels fitting when it molds around his body, letting the iron arm stay out and attaching around it, only forming a repulsor at the end.

He doesn’t know if he should be flying while this kind of emotion is crippling him, more than he’s already crippled, and he feels every flick of pain like a thousand jolts, every way in which his body isn’t ready for this. But he goes anyway, searching, searching, listening to Friday’s updates, listening to the news, listening and hoping and crying and crying and crying. He’s never cried this fucking much while inside the suit, and he can tell Friday is struggling with it. He wonders what Jarvis would have said.

“_Please breathe, Boss._”

“I’m breathing, Fri,” Tony says, looking down into the New York lights. “How’s the scan going?”

“_No sign of him yet, but I’m still scanning._”

“Keep doing it,” Tony says. He’s been up here for about an hour now, and Peter’s been gone for going on three. It makes Tony feel crazy, sends him headlong into the month that they were without him. All the uncertainty. He feels like he should have prevented this, somehow, but he didn’t want to lock him away, didn’t want him to think he was trapped at the tower, too. But Tony should have seen this coming, should have been aware it was a possibility—Michelle is right. Sitting around gets to Peter, especially when there are people out there who need him. They should have reassured him more. Let him know the streets were safe.

It would have been a lie.

It’s been hard, pretending things are normal since the blip. Peter had a lot to do in those eight months between coming back and going to Europe, he was more active as Spider-Man than he ever was, and it’s been hard to keep all the heroes on their game with so much shit to do to get the world right again. To get _the universe_ right again.

Tony’s sure the kid knows what a mess it is out here. And he never puts himself first. It probably just hit him, full on, everything he’s been missing while he’s been recovering. Tony should have known that was gonna fucking happen, he was too focused on keeping him safe from everything that happened to him that he didn’t think about who Peter _is_, at his core. He’s a protector. He’s a hero.

Tony sighs, and weaves around the Damage Control building.

“Fri,” he says, sounding particularly pathetic. “I know we’ve been doing this since Pete got back, but keep scanning for Quentin Beck, alright? He’s active right now, that whole video bullshit, and we might be able to grab him if he pokes his head out.”

“_Understood, Boss, and will continue._”

A few minutes later, a call from Rhodey comes in. Tony answers it fast, flying low for a second and probably scaring the shit out of the pedestrians. 

“_We didn’t find him yet_,” Rhodey says, before Tony can say anything. “_I just wanted to check in with you. Pepper said you weren’t doing good._”

“Of course I’m not doing good,” Tony says, letting out a wavering sigh, glancing around at the pink and purple sky. He has a bad feeling this is gonna get more difficult as they get further into nightfall. “My kid’s gone.”

“_He wasn’t taken, though,_” Rhodey says. “_He left on his own, and she said he seemed clear headed in the security tape._”

“He did,” Tony says, gaining some more height. “I just don’t fucking know. I want him back. This isn’t good, Rhodey, with that asshole out there—did she tell you about the video he sent?”

“_Yeah_,” Rhodey says. “_Said Morgan was half traumatized seeing Peter like that._”

Tony hadn’t even really considered that, and it feels like a gut punch. He tries not to crash into the closest apartment building, and keeps going higher. “It was bad,” he says. “And the timing.”

“_Yeah_,” Rhodey says. “_We’re gonna find him, though._”

He says that as if this is any different than everyone out looking before, the first time. But Tony tries to remind himself that it is different. Peter isn’t hidden right now. He’s out there. Beck _does not_ have him. He doesn’t. Tony has to remind himself of that. He doesn’t. Peter’s out there, free, and they’re gonna get him back.

“_And you’re in the suit_,” Rhodey says. “_You’re in the suit again, Tones. That’s incredible. You’re amazing, you know that?_”

“I’m not shit,” Tony says, scoffing. “I’m doing it for Peter.”

“_We all thought you were gonna die. Never put a suit on again. And now look at you. I know you’re following Spider-Man on Twitter right now, but you should look at the Iron Man hashtag, too. People are—you give people hope, Tony. You give me hope, too. Your love for the kid got you past what I thought would be a major fucking obstacle, man. I’m proud of you. Just tell me if you need help up there, alright? I’m ready._”

Tony swallows hard, shaking his head. He loves Rhodey, but that’s nothing new. “Thanks,” he says, stupidly. “Just—yeah, thank you.” He’d usually snap, brush him off, but he doesn’t have it in him right now. “Keep looking, okay?” he says, his voice breaking.

“_We’re gonna find him,_” Rhodey says. “_Promise._”

That’s when the screen lights up with Peter’s number. Tony’s heart nearly shoots through the fucking arc reactor in the suit, his eyes going wide. 

“He’s calling me,” Tony stammers. “I—” He shakes his head, and ends Rhodey’s call before picking up, trying to keep himself in the air. “Peter!” he says, nearly yelling, breathing hard through his mouth. “Are you alright? Where are you? Your phone’s at home, did you—connect it to the suit?”

“_Yeah,_” Peter’s voice says, weakly. “_I’m sorry._”

“Don’t apologize, buddy, just tell me where you are and I’ll come get you,” Tony says, shaking so violently that he feels like the nanotech is gonna burst apart around him. “Where are you, Pete?”

“_Is that you, in the sky?_” Peter asks, his breath coming fast, and Tony’s terrified that he’s hurt. “_Is that you, in...in a suit?_”

“It’s me,” Tony says, looking all around, at the city below him. Peter’s down there somewhere. He’s alive, he’s alone, he’s talking to him. Beck doesn’t have him again. He doesn’t. “It’s me, I’m looking for you. I’m out here for you, alright? Tell me where you are, bud. Tell me, please. I’ll come get you.”

“_I’m...uh, 87th and 1st...the alleyway behind the, uh, hardware store. Sanitation department._”

Tony immediately turns in that direction.

“_Six minutes at top speed, Boss,_” Friday says.

Tony pushes it past top speed, rocketing through the air and losing altitude. 

“_I’m so sorry, Tony,_” Peter says, and Tony doesn’t like the way he sounds. “_I just—I wasn’t—I wasn’t thinking straight._”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Tony says. “Are you alright? Are you _alright?_”

“_I’m—I’m not dead, or—mortally wounded,_” Peter says. “_It’s—this is a great suit. This is a really great suit._”

“Yeah, happy belated birthday,” Tony says, catching sight of the sanitation department. “I’m coming, do you see me?”

“_Like a shooting star,_” Peter says, laughing a little wetly. “_I never thought—I always worried that I would—never see the Iron Man suit in the sky again—_”

“Well, here it is,” Tony says. _For you._ “Just stay with me, Pete.”

He’d do anything for his kids. Anything. Even if someone told him he’d never do something again, that it was well into the realm of impossibility, he’d find a way if his kids needed him to.

He lands a few moments later, as easily as he can, despite the fact that he was plummeting down like a meteor. Thankfully, there aren’t a whole lot of people around, and he can see Peter’s foot sticking out from behind the dumpster.

Tony withdraws the nanos and rushes over, trying not to trip over his own feet.

“Kid, kid,” Tony stutters, as Peter slowly comes into view. He’s wearing the scarlet spider suit, except he’s maskless, no eye patch. He’s got a bloody nose, a cut above his good eye, and the suit is sliced in a few different places around his midsection. Tony drops down on his knees, wincing at the hard ground, and immediately presses his hands to Peter’s stomach. “Friday, gimme a scan, please.”

“I stopped—I _stopped_ an, uh, ATM robbery, and then a—a mugging, and then—another mugging, that’s where I—had a problem. I—I’m not right, still, Tony, I’m not—the eye, it’s—it’s, uh, I have—I can’t master what Matt tells me to work on, not—not yet. Not yet.”

“_Everything is surface level, Boss_,” Friday says. “_Just superficial cuts, one broken rib. The nose almost broke but it held_.”

Tony nearly collapses, and he reaches up, touching Peter’s cheek. “Okay,” he says, nodding. “It’s okay. It’s okay.” He’s gotta tell the rest of them he found him. Rhodey probably assumes. They all had to have seen him diving. 

Peter dissolves into tears, shaking his head. “I just—I couldn’t—”

“No, no,” Tony whispers, his heart lurching. He takes Peter’s hands, and gently draws him to his feet. “No, no, it’s alright,” Tony says, rubbing his arm once he’s standing. He didn’t even think about how he was gonna get him home, and he doesn’t know if flying with him is the right way to go. 

But Peter collapses into Tony’s chest before he can think too much about it. Tony latches onto him, and looks up at the sky, finally able to truly feel relief, thanking whoever is listening, whoever’s watching over them. He’s here, Peter’s here. Alive, alive. Safe. No Beck anywhere. No fucking Beck.

“I’ve got you,” Tony whispers, gripping the back of Peter’s neck. “It’s all fine, Pete, you’re gonna get there. You will. I promise. We’re all gonna help, you’re gonna be Spider-Man again. I promise. I promise. Shit, you always will be him, kid. You _are_ Spider-Man. There’s no changing that. We just gotta straighten some things out, that’s all.” 

He glances over his shoulder to make sure no one is paying attention to them. People pass by outside the alleyway, but thankfully, no one stops. Tony sees Peter’s mask on the ground, where he was sitting, and he’s gotta remind himself to grab it before they go.

“Tony,” Peter sobs, holding onto him. 

“Shh, you’re fine,” Tony says, rubbing his back. “You’re safe, it’s okay. We’re gonna go home, we’re gonna talk about this, it’s all fine, it’s all alright.”

Peter shakes his head, pulling back and wiping at his eye. He’s not even trying to hide the eye socket, which is worrying Tony. He braces his hand on Peter’s shoulder, craning his neck to look at him.

“Pete, what’s—”

Peter meets his gaze then, and he looks purely miserable, still holding onto Tony’s arms for support. 

“Tony, I’ve—I have to tell—I have to show you something.”


	8. help me, tony, please

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you want the effect that I had when I was writing....this particular bit at the beginning (and you will know the bit) listen to "Exit Music (For a Film)" by Ramin Djawadi from the Westworld soundtrack on repeat.
> 
> Surprise. Happy Saturday.

Peter insists on flying, but they don’t head home.

Tony is more afraid than he was on that first night, when he saw the kid’s bloody eye socket, the feral way he moved. 

This is worse. 

Peter is turning in on himself strangely, while they stand there in the alleyway, crying and gasping and avoiding Tony’s eyes but insisting on showing him something, like he’s made a decision he didn’t want to make and he’s trying to keep himself from backing out. He doesn’t say what it is, he just bends over with a few creaking groans, grabs his mask, and latches onto Tony again. He says he’ll tell him where to go. Tony asks, but Peter doesn’t say, doesn’t look at him.

Tony flies, listens to the instructions, and he’s afraid. 

He’s so afraid, so laser focused on what’s going on with the kid that he forgets to send a message to the others, and he briefly thinks about it, only a flash before Peter holds on tighter to the suit, like he thinks he’s gonna fall.

“I’ve got you,” Tony says, without thinking about it. 

He can hear Peter stifle another sob, and fuck, Tony is terrified, he has no idea what’s going on. “Right over there,” Peter says, stretching out a trembling hand, moved more by the wind around them. “Next to—next to the building with the orange lights. Across—across from the church.”

Tony sees what he’s pointing at. It just looks like an innocuous clump of buildings, probably stores or something, but he heads down anyway, making sure he has a good hold on the kid. One of the buildings looks strange, different, out of place. Larger than the others. He doesn’t actually like the idea of so many fucking people seeing them, wondering what the hell is going on, and he starts to think about where to land when Peter tucks his face into Tony’s shoulder. He’s shaking so hard that Tony can barely keep him in his arms, and Tony doesn’t know what’s happening, not in his conscious mind, but the idea of it all is forming somewhere in the back of his head.

Part of him knows, but he doesn’t wanna believe it. Doesn’t wanna see it, doesn’t wanna understand, doesn’t want that front seat. The video was enough. He’s got that burned onto the backs of his eyes, and more—more? Is Peter actually bringing him—

Tony lands easy in a back alleyway next to the place Peter pointed out, scattering a few roaches and rats. There’s no one in the alley and Tony quickly retracts the nanos, tipping Peter’s chin up. Peter is trembling violently still, the right eye on the suit mask squeezing narrow while the other stays open wide. 

“What’s happening, kid?” Tony asks, his own fear permeating into his voice. “Where are we?”

He knows.

Peter stutters something Tony can’t hear, and he leans forward, briefly pressing his head to Tony’s shoulder. Like he needs comfort, craves it, but he straightens back up before Tony can touch him. Then he grabs Tony’s hand, tugging him out towards the street.

“Hey, hey, wait, let’s not—”

But then there is no alleyway, there is no street, and it’s all darkness, except for the raging fire all around them. There are ships in the air, shooting, and Tony ducks on instinct, reaching forward and trying to shield the kid, too.

It’s an apocalypse.

Peter doesn’t look, and he keeps a tight hold on Tony’s hand. “It’s not—it’s not real,” Peter says, as something explodes behind them. Tony jumps with the sound of it, and they seem to turn to where the building was before all of this cropped up, like they’re walking right through where the walls should be, and the thoughts that were forming are complete now, jagged and terrifying, and Tony wants to push them away. 

He knows.

He remembers what Peter told him the other night, about the illusions outside of the building where he was being kept, the illusion he had to get through in order to escape, before Beck grabbed him again—

He hears screaming, shrieking, and he’s afraid, afraid of who’s voice that is, what Beck had to do to get it, but it doesn’t sound like Peter, it doesn’t sound like Peter—

Peter is moving through with a purpose, although his body language shows that he’s seconds from breaking, his shoulders slumped, the hand around Tony’s own squeezing, begging for reassurance. Tony tries to give it, tries to squeeze back, not really worrying about the kid breaking the bones in his hand, even though he could absolutely do that. 

What if Beck is still here? What if this is it? What if this is the moment he’s been dreaming of, the moment he’s been conjuring, with blood and bulging eyes and death, death, death—

He didn’t want Peter there for it. He didn’t want him to see.

But amongst all the blackness and fire and terror, Tony’s own rage flares up.

He’s gonna kill him. If he’s fucking here, Tony is gonna kill him.

He doesn’t have time to wonder why now, why, why did the kid keep this, and if he didn’t, why did it strike him _now?_ Did he come here, to check if Beck was still around, before he went out searching for people to save? If that’s the case, he’s probably gone, well cleared out by now. Peter wouldn’t drag Tony into a fight. No bloody revenge today.

Without bloody revenge, there’s just the horrible, horrible reality of what his kid had to endure. The echo of it, just beyond Beck’s manufactured terrors, rings out so loud that Tony can barely hear anything else. And he doesn’t know if he can do it, he doesn’t know if he can see, if he can bear it, he doesn’t know, he doesn’t know—

One of the little jets flies dangerously low and Tony doesn’t know how it’s not real, he doesn’t, because it ruffles his hair and there’s wind everywhere and it’s loud, so fucking loud, but then—

They’re stepping through a door, the hinges whining, and when Peter closes it, there’s silence.

He lets go of Tony’s hand.

The smell is fucking overwhelming—dank, and rot, some strange cheap perfume, cold and heavy and putrid. Tony gags, and immediately steps closer to Peter before he really thinks about it, because he knows where they are. He knows where they are. Nothing else would feel like this. The weight of it. The horrific memories clinging to the walls.

Peter breathes hard beside him, the kind of breathing he does when he’s trying to hold himself together, and Tony has no fucking idea how he’s breathing at all with how badly it smells in here.

He doesn’t wanna see. He doesn’t want to. He wants to grab the kid and go, tell him it’s alright, that they’ll bury it, they’ll bury this, they’ll level the place to the ground and knock out whatever Beck did to hide the building, and then they’ll find him and they’ll have him executed in goddamn Washington Square Park because everyone needs to see it, everyone needs to see him taken out, taken down, but Tony—he doesn’t think about it, he doesn’t, and he opens his eyes—

The room is small, more angular and long than deep, the walls all rife with mold, an incessant dripping coming from above, somewhere Tony can’t see. There’s a loud clattering that sounds like a radiator that’s completely busted, and the whole place is like a crypt, like they’ve been buried, like there are shrouds over their bodies and they won’t see the light of day again.

He takes a step forward without meaning to, without wanting to, and his stomach turns. With the smell, with the overwhelming fucking smell, but with what he sees. The images his mind have been so afraid to provide, but in front of him now.

There’s sadness in the air, here. Almost like a physical thing he can reach out and touch.

He sees Beck’s set-up of computers lining the left wall, still blinking green, like they’d just been active. The array of fans Peter talked about. Tony covers his mouth with both hands, trembling, and he can’t stop looking around. He sees the chains on the walls, sees ropes coiled on the ground, blood splatters here, there, on the wall, on the floor, every fucking where. He sees the gurney Peter’s mentioned, sees the metal cuffs and the straps and fuck, he’s gonna be sick. He’s gonna fucking throw up. His legs shake with more steps he doesn’t want to take, and he sees—he sees a table. Knives, too many knives. Saws, a blow torch, matches, handcuffs, a bunch of rolls of tape, metal bowls, broken glass, barbed wire, nightmare after fucking nightmare, and he can’t look, he can’t look anymore, because that means he’s gotta think, he’s gotta picture it and he can’t, he _can’t—_

Peter’s breathing gets worse and worse behind him, and Tony can hear him pacing, can hear him whimpering. Tony is about to go to him, about to wrap him up and take him away when he sees—

He isn’t sure what it is, at first, in a strange, putrefied puddle down on the ground at the end of the gurney, but he takes the slightest closer look and he knows, he knows—

It’s Peter’s eye, it’s his eye, barely round on one side and completely smashed the rest of the way through, almost like a boot did it, and Tony can see the iris, the pupil distant, almost like it’s greyed over from how long it’s been sitting here—

Tony heaves, closes his eyes and stumbling forward, the wrong way, but he’s gotta get away, he’s gotta—he can’t fucking look, he can’t—

Tony knows those eyes, he knows those eyes—looking expectantly over a recording phone in the backseat of the car, searching him out on a red planet with dust all around them, scrunched up with mirth and laughter on the Cyclone in Coney Island—

What has he done? What has he _done?_

“Tony!” Peter yells, a forlorn sounding thing ripped from his throat, and Tony opens his eyes again, but he’s not facing him, not yet, and before he turns. Before. Before he can turn. 

Before.

He sees—

He isn’t sure what it is at first, a dark, drooping shape nearly merging with the ground close to the metal leg of a table. 

“Tony!” Peter sobs again, horror-stricken, and Tony wants to go to him, he does, but there’s—there’s this—he can’t stop moving towards it, he can’t, he can’t, and the fucking _smell_ is seeping into his bones now, but it’s—it’s—

It’s Beck.

He’s decomposing. He’s hardly a body anymore. He’s—Tony can see the black spray of blood around the back of his head, and his cheek is hollowed in, what’s left of his teeth showing through, his face twisted into a sick sort of grin. There are no more nails on his gnarled hands. Tony gets too close, his eyes wide with confusion and shock, and a rat scurries away from the body. Tony covers his mouth again because he can’t breathe, the fucking rot, parts of Beck eaten away by death itself and by the maggots and animals living here. Beck’s own eyes are withered away, the whole of him a ragged, putrid husk that Tony never, never in a million fucking years, thought he’d find here.

He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand. 

“I didn’t _mean_ to.”

Peter’s voice is rough with sadness. “He’s—he, he—from the very beginning he just wanted me to—to kill you in illusions, Tony, and he’d always do it, and I never would, I never would, not one time, no matter what he did to me afterwards, I just—I couldn’t, I couldn’t do it—”

Tony reaches up to grip his chest, backing away from the corpse. He’s shaking, shaking so hard he can’t control it, his whole body cold. He slowly turns and looks at Peter, and Peter winces when he sees the look on his face, taking a few steps back. He looks down at his feet, clutching his mask in his hands, twisting it, and he shreds it in two without more than a gentle touch.

“After what—what I told you, the—first escape,” Peter says, gasping, shaking his head, “he did it more often. As much as he could. He put you in the most fucking—horrible situations, Tony, and I—it hurt, it hurt so bad, but I’d never—I’d never do what he wanted, never, and I—I _hated_ him. I stopped—I stopped listening. I stopped—giving him the satisfaction of—reacting, and for a while that—that made him hurt me more. But I just—one day he said ‘_you kill him or you’re never gonna see him again_’ and he was—he said ‘_you’re never gonna see_’ and then he—and then he walked away and came back with the knife—”

“Peter,” Tony says, finally finding his voice, clutching at his own left arm. “You don’t have to tell me.”

Peter looks at him. Pleading. Tony can feel the ghost of him in every inch of this place, in the water on the walls, in the blood Beck wrenched from him, in the straps on the gurney. He can hear him, in the silence. 

“I’ve—I’ve never felt pain like that,” Peter says, barely a whisper. He looks so young. So hurt. “It was—it just wouldn’t stop. I thought I was gonna die. I couldn’t stop screaming. I couldn’t stop screaming. I was so afraid. In all my time here—” he looks up and around, a shudder running through him, “—I was never that afraid. And he—and he said he’d take the other one tomorrow.” Peter nods, his face crumpling, tears racing down his cheek. “He said—he’d wait—and he tried—he tried to—” 

“Peter,” Tony says, his own voice breaking.

Peter shakes his head, wincing at a memory that gets too close. They’re everywhere, in here. Specters wailing in the darkness. 

“I knew I couldn’t let him,” Peter says, not looking. “I couldn’t. I became—something else. He fought with me that night and I stole a nail when he wasn’t looking, before he strapped me down and went to sleep and I—I laid there all night, just—petrified, just—frozen. I barely remember it. I barely remember it. But he came at me early and I’d already gotten one cuff loose but I just—” He’s breathing hard now, pressing his lips together, eye dazed. “I ripped my arm out of the other one, found this kind of—violent strength I didn’t know I had anymore and just—rushed at him, and I—I hit him so hard—I landed on him and he hit the ground _so hard—_”

“It’s okay,” Tony says, taking one wavering step in his direction, trying to weave around what he knows is in his path. He knows what this means, for Peter. What it’s been doing to him, since it happened. Festering. Eating him alive. Peter, a shining, bright, kind human being. Caring about that fucking _monster._

“It’s not okay,” Peter says, looking at him from under furrowed brows. “He didn’t die immediately—but he knew he was dying—and the last thing he said to me was ‘_I’ll always be with you._’ And he smiled.” Peter covers his mouth with his hand and starts pacing, and Tony feels like the world is off kilter. Like they’ll be locked up here forever.

“I tried to save him,” Peter breathes, and Tony’s heart breaks. It feels like a physical wound in his chest. Gaping. “I tried, I tried, but I’d—smashed his fucking head in, and there was nothing I could—and then I just—I was like a wild animal, once it hit me. I lost everything, everything was—black and white and I—I just kept thinking—tower, tower, tower. That’s all I—I couldn’t—remember anything else.”

Tony steps the wrong way, a move he doesn’t mean to make, and something clicks under his foot. The computer behind him buzzes to life, and he spins around, heart rattling. He sees a list of files, and sees the video he saw earlier in the inset, the lines of code and firewalls protecting the location. He sees a list, his brain barely processing, and each video is scheduled to be sent on what looks like random dates.

It was random. A jab from beyond the grave. 

Tony feels sick, but he steps forward anyway, out of his own volition. Peter is quiet, as Tony stares, and then the videos start playing.

Like Beck knows they’re here.

The first one is the one he saw earlier, and he looks down, looks away, and only hears it last a few more seconds than it initially did. The next one plays immediately. 

Beck, sitting in front of the camera, with his feet up. And Peter is in the background, with a wet cloth bag over his head, his arms stretched out and strapped down on either side of him. Tony looks over his shoulder, an eerie strain of goosebumps running up his spine, and he sees the gurney. Peter was right there. All of his suffering, it’s blaring in here. Everything is coated with it.

“_And I think you’re a piece of shit, Stark_,” Beck says, tilting his head at the camera as Peter’s chest heaves in the background. “_But you knew that, right? You knew that. You steal people’s ideas, you steal their—their livelihoods—_”

Tony can tell Peter is gagged under the hood from the sound he makes next, no words but a muffled groan of anger. He’s trying to be loud, but he sounds so weak.

Beck looks back at him. “_Jesus, shut the fuck up, I told you I was filming—_”

Tony’s rage envelops his heart in embers, and he closes his eyes tight as the video cuts off and a new one starts. But it startles him, because it starts with screaming. 

Peter screaming. 

Peter screaming for him.

“_TONY, PLEASE, TONY HELP ME, HELP ME, TONY PLEASE, PLEASE HELP ME—HELP ME, HELP ME, IT_ HURTS, IT HURTS, TONY PLEASE, PLEASE HELP ME—”

It’s so loud, and violent, full of agony and fear and desperation, and Tony feels like he might die here too. 

Peter called out for him and he never came. He called for him and got nothing. Emptiness. These four walls. The shape of hell, sad and small and dark and dingy, the cage Beck made for him.

Tony never came. He never got here. He never helped him.

He opens his eyes and sees Peter on the gurney in the video, whipping himself around in his restraints, and even though the angle is bad Tony can see the blood, can see the eye socket, flaring red and newly emptied, and Beck rushes into the frame. 

He holds Peter’s face in his hands, trying to get him to stop moving.

It’s almost as if he’s—trying to be _soothing—_

Tony’s whole body jolts, tremors running through him, and he feels like he might be sick, he might vomit, he might have a heart attack and collapse, and Peter’s screams taper off, his movements slowing.

No. _No._

“_It’s alright_,” Beck whispers, sickeningly. “_It’s alright, I’m here. I’m here_.”

It feels like there’s a tight band closing around Tony’s chest, and he can’t watch this. He can’t watch this anymore. It’s rancid. It’s killing him.

“He pretended to be you,” Peter says, behind him, sounding so deadpan and soulless, like he’s finally given up. 

The rage is no longer embers. It is flame, and all consuming. 

“_You’ll never be him_,” the Peter in the video says, still breathing hard.

Beck stares for a second, as pride swells in Tony’s chest amongst the red hot anger, and then Beck grips Peter’s face tighter. Rough.

“_I was trying to_ help you,” Beck sneers, too close to the kid’s face. “_And you’re—I give you exactly who you want, and you’re_ ungrateful?” He takes Peter’s head and slams it into the gurney. 

Tony breaks. Malfunctions. He’s lost in the thick horror of it all, the way it hangs in the air here, every moment of suffering crowding up to him and begging to be saved. He marches over to what’s left of Beck, and he starts kicking him. The body gives way, making disgusting squelching noises, bones twisting into a fine dust under the heel of his boot. But he keeps kicking, like a madman, and he doesn’t picture Beck like the half-liquefied corpse he is now, but the man in those videos, the man who dared to keep his kid prisoner here in this hell hole, the man who dared to hurt him as much as he did, the man who _dared_ to make Peter kill him when it’ll stay with Peter for the rest of his goddamn life—

His Peter, who does not kill, who’s been trying desperately to tell him this from moment one, who’s been laying gentle clues, too afraid and ashamed to say it outright—

Tony can feel the body give way, but he can’t stop, and he can’t see, he can’t see, he can’t breathe—

Finally there’s hands on him, and the air comes rushing back in, and he can hear Peter screaming.

“Stop, Tony, stop, _stop, stop, stop—!_”

Tony stumbles back, eyes wide again, and the smell is almost worse now, and he’s horrified at himself, fucking mortified, and he can hear Peter’s footfalls moving in the opposite direction, crying openly now, letting out broken, mournful sobs that cut down to Tony’s core.

He turns and sees him, the real him, but the memory of him everywhere. Shadows, phantoms. Everywhere, and they say _please, please help me_ and Tony reaches out to chained hands, but they slip through his fingers. 

Part of Peter is lost. Left here.

Peter paces, trembling, in the midst of panic, and Tony can only imagine what he sees, what he himself fucking contributed to with what he just did, and his heart is broken. It’s split in two.

He can’t let him be alone. He was alone for so long, alone in his pain, and it’s too much, overwhelming, everywhere. 

He can’t let him be alone.

“Peter,” Tony says, voice trembling. He wills himself to move forward. “Peter, c’mere, kid, I’m here. C’mere, baby, I’ve got you.” Tony never calls him that, but the word slips out undeterred. Like when Morgan screams in the night, plagued by unknown dreams, and Tony just wants to soothe her.

Peter lets out a sound of pure grief, something so desolate and aching that Tony surges forward, closing the space between them and gathering him up in his arms. He holds him as close as he can, tries to be everything Peter’s ever seen in him, tries to be a pillar of strength even though he’s close to crumbling. Tony holds him like the precious thing he is, his kid, the kid that made him want to be a father in the first place, and for now, he doesn’t focus on his immense, irredeemable failure. He just focuses on Peter. Being there for Peter. 

“I’ve got you,” Tony whispers, reverently, rocking him back and forth as Peter continues to cry. “I’m here now. I’m here.”

Peter’s legs give out and Tony immediately catches him, worrying that he’s passing out. But his shoulders are still wracked with sobs, and he readjusts his hold on Tony, wrapping his arms around his neck and grasping at him like his life depends on it. Tony hooks his arm under Peter’s knees and picks him up, carrying him, trying to stay on steady feet.

“Friday,” Tony says, already marching towards the exit, be damned the fucking illusion and whoever else is out there. He hopes his com is still in his ear, still working. “Friday, get Happy to my location as soon as possible, meaning nearly instantaneous, hear me?”

“_Got it, Boss,_” she says, softly. 

He kicks the door open with his foot, carrying Peter out into the hellscape Beck made, like the moat for his prison. 

“I need everyone else here, at my current location, including Fury and Hill, but under no circumstances does May come here, understand?”

Peter squeezes his shoulders at the sound of her name.

“Michelle, Ned, Pepper or Morgan either,” Tony says, his own eyes filling with tears now, tears he can’t wipe away. 

He starts moving through the dark and fiery battle, gritting his teeth. He is too many things, right now, but he tries to remain stalwart.

“_Happy is minutes away,_” Friday says in his ear. “_Colonel Rhodes is with him._”

“Good,” Tony grunts, trying not to pay too much attention to the fake explosions and jets flying around. “Just have them pull up, I need one of them to come open the back door for me but other than that I’m handling the situation, I just need them to get us home.”

“_Understood._”

Tony doesn’t know what would happen if one of them tried to talk to Peter right now, but this reminds him of the first night and he’s terrified of the kid regressing worse than he was then. 

He’s terrified.

He finally manages to weave the right way and he steps back out into the alleyway. He hears real human voices, the clattering of the night, and he quickly rushes towards the back of the alley, where there’s darkness to hide them.

He leans his head on Peter’s, letting out a breath. “I’ve got you,” he whispers again. “You’re with me. You’re free, you’re safe. I love you, Pete. I love you.”

It’s a new thing, saying that phrase so easily. He never could in his previous life, but after he lost Peter, after he gained Morgan, he got a new perspective. He should have had it before, with what he’d dealt with up until that point, but losing someone who he saw as his child, someone he should have protected, it made him see how precious every day was. How feelings needed to be said and said often, so people would know, so time wouldn’t eclipse the moments they had together before there were no more moments left, no ability to say what he really felt because that person was _gone_. So he said it all the time, to Morgan, to Pepper, at the little place he made for them in the world because he was too ashamed of his massive failure to be a real part of anything anymore. _I love you_ every five seconds. And when he got Peter back, he did the same with him. Peter would always say it back, with such happiness and gusto.

But he doesn’t reply. He only holds Tony tighter.

Tony is terrified.

He sees Happy pull up, nearly mowing over a trash can, and Rhodey rushes out of the passenger side, looking around frantically. Tony moves quickly, hoisting Peter up a little more and trying to put most of his weight on the iron arm. Rhodey sees him coming, panic briefly flitting across his face before he overcomes it, opening the back door. 

“Here we go,” Tony says, awkwardly climbing inside while he’s still got a hold of the kid. “Here we go,” he says again, once he’s managed it, and he arranges Peter next to him, wrapping his arms around him again. Peter doesn’t let go, still crying, but not as hard.

“I’ve got you,” Tony whispers, as Rhodey shuts the door. He rubs Peter’s back, pressing a long kiss to his forehead. “I’ve got you.”

Rhodey gets back in and Happy takes off, and Tony feels dazed, insane, like the past however amount of time in the warehouse was much longer than the brief time they spent there. He wonders if Beck did something to make it feel that way, to draw out every moment like he was bleeding Peter dry. Tony tightens his hold on him, feeling the intense need to never leave his side again, to never let anyone look at him that hasn’t gone through six levels of clearances first.

He doesn’t think, or he’ll break. He doesn’t think.

He sees Happy’s eyes in the rearview mirror, and Tony wishes he could tell them now. Tell them Beck isn’t a problem anymore. But he doesn’t want to say it with Peter here, doesn’t want to rub it in, remind him, because he knows how it hurts. Knows how much he hates himself for it.

He tried to _save him._

Tony brushes Peter’s hair back, heaving a measured sigh. “Helen’s at the tower, right?” he asks. He tries to remember, but he can’t find it in his head. Nothing feels the same as it did an hour ago.

“She’s there,” Rhodey says. “I’ll send her a message to get ready for you.”

Tony can tell by his tone that he’s itching to know what the hell is going on, but he’s holding himself back. Tony just holds onto Peter, and closes his eyes.

~

The others aren’t back yet when they arrive, and Tony keeps carrying Peter, who seems to be going completely catatonic. They get him up to the med bay, where Helen and Bruce are both waiting. Once Tony gets Peter into a bed, Helen quickly starts checking him out, while Peter just lies there and allows it.

Happy rushes off to get him clothes to change into, and Tony hovers by the far wall, teetering on the edge of insanity. He feels haunted.

Rhodey shifts over to his side, and Tony leans close to him without thinking about it.

“What the hell is going on?” Rhodey whispers.

Tony knows they’re still not far away enough from Peter for him not to hear them, but the kid barely looks like he’s hearing anything right now. His eye is fixed on the ceiling, and Tony doesn’t like the idea of losing him to his own head. Not right now. Not after all that.

“He’d known where he was, I think,” Tony says, voice still shaking. “All along. It was like he—finally gathered up the nerve to tell me, to—bring me there.”

“And what happened?” Rhodey asks, eyes intent.

Tony shakes his head, looking down at the ground. “Beck’s dead,” he whispers. “He’s been dead. Peter killed him by—by accident, and that’s when he—when he escaped.”

Rhodey’s brows rise up high into his forehead, and Tony’s seen a lot of shock on that face in the years they’ve known each other, but never like this. “Jesus Christ,” Rhodey breathes, shaking his head. “Oh my God.”

Tony nods. “The place was—it was a nightmare. A goddamn nightmare, Rhodey.”

Rhodey blows out a breath, staring down at the ground, and he shakes his head again. “Everyone’s, uh, heading there. Now, to gather everything up.”

“I want it demolished,” Tony says, meeting his gaze. “Once everything’s out and catalogued, I want it gone.”

“Yeah,” Rhodey says, eyes getting a little teary. “No, yeah, that’s—we will. We’ll get rid of it.” He stares off, then looks at Tony again. “He’s been dead this whole time?”

“Yeah, this whole time. Since Pete got back. He—he left immediately, after—it happened.”

Tony can see him working through it, can see the pain in his face, and he blows out a breath. “We’re gonna have to—inform everyone that he’s—he’s gone.”

“They’re gonna find out, they’re going there. Well, most of ‘em, anyway.”

“Yeah,” Rhodey says. “Jesus, are we—did you wanna—I don’t know, pad the truth?”

Tony shakes his head. “There’s no way to do it,” he says. “With how the body was—the state it was in, there’s no way to—disguise it as a fresh kill.” He’d thought about it already. 

No one will blame Peter, but the idea of all of them knowing, Peter being aware that all of them know—it’s not gonna work. It’s not gonna help.

Tony doesn’t know how to _help—_

“He was so close to us,” he half-whispers. “So close to us, all that time. Right—right under our noses and we couldn’t find him. He was just—a couple blocks away.”

The door opens, and Tony immediately worries they’re all gonna rush in here, clamoring and screaming and demanding explanations, but they enter in a quiet line, almost as if Happy caught them on the way in and explained the state Peter was in when they picked him and Tony up.

May spares him a quick glance as she moves over to her nephew, while Ned and Michelle surround Peter, Michelle immediately threading their fingers together. Pepper comes in last, holding Morgan, and Tony freezes. Just looking at his wife—she’s his candle in the window, his life preserver, and he knows without a doubt he has to be alone with her right now.

He grips Rhodey’s arm as he moves past him, and he leans in, kissing Morgan’s forehead. She’s still awake, her eyes intent and nervous, and she peers around Tony to where Peter is with the others.

“Is he okay?” Morgan whispers, like she’s afraid to be louder.

“He will be,” Tony says, voice breaking as he runs his fingers through her hair. “We’re all gonna help. You’re gonna help too. He loves you, baby.”

“But he’s okay?” Morgan asks, a tear streaking down her face.

Tony’s heart lurches and he reaches out, wiping it away with his thumb. “He is,” he says, because he’s alive, because he’s here and safe, and not in that hell hole anymore. That’s what they have to be grateful for, for now. “You know what you can do for him? And for me? It’s a really important job.”

“What?” she says, perking up a little bit.

“You can go with your Uncle Rhodey,” Tony says, looking over his shoulder at him and then back at Morgan again, “and feed Miss Leia. Give her the rest of the tuna in the fridge and some of the blue containers we’ve got piled up in the second cabinet. Okay?” He touches her hair again, feeling far too emotional right now. 

“Okay,” she says. 

Tony quickly meets Pepper’s eyes as she transfers Morgan over to Rhodey, and Tony knows she knows what he needs. They don’t say anything to anyone else, and she takes his hand in hers, leading him out of the room.

He feels like he’s gonna scream.

Tony is vulnerable, with her. She knows his highest highs and lowest lows and loves him anyway.

But the warehouse has him in its grip now, too.

“What happened?” Pepper whispers, when they stop walking down the hallway, close to the elevator. Tony disables it for this floor, because he doesn’t want anybody else coming up here. Pepper stays close to him, her hands on his arm and shoulder.

“Beck’s dead,” Tony says, and he doesn’t sound like himself—he barely sounds human. “Peter accidentally killed him the day he got out.” His eyes are burning, his face red, and his heart is beating so loud that he’s sure everyone in the tower can hear it.

“Oh my god,” Pepper breathes, stepping closer to him. “Tony—”

That’s not important. Beck isn’t important.

“Pepper,” Tony says, squeezing his eyes shut and swaying into her space. “Peter brought me to the place where he was kept and it—I’ve never—I’ve never _felt_ like that.”

“Sweetheart,” she says, rubbing his arm, reaching up to touch his cheek. “God, Tony, that—I can’t believe—I can’t even imagine.”

He looks up at her. A chill running down his spine, that place still howling like abandonment. “It felt like—it felt like part of him had died there,” Tony whispers. “Like—the ghost of him was—was calling out to me and I couldn’t—I couldn’t help him. I couldn’t _help him_, Pep.”

Her eyes are red now too, and she shakes her head at him. “You’ve got him now, Tony,” she says. “He’s not there anymore.”

“But he was there,” Tony says, too harshly, but he doesn’t scare her away. Everything hurts, everything, and he can’t stop trembling. “He was there. I could see it, I could—I could _feel it_, his—his blood on the ground, the chains on the walls, all the fucking shit that asshole used to hurt my—Peter and it was just—it was so heavy with sadness, and I was there for—I don’t even know, not that long, but I’ll—I’ll never stop seeing it. I’ll never—never—forget what that felt like.”

“We’ll get him past it,” Pepper says, clutching at his shoulder. “We will.”

“He was gonna die there,” Tony says, glancing away from her. “I could feel it, in the air, I know my kid—it got to be too much, he’d—he’d decided it, he’d given in—it wasn’t until that fucker took his eye and shocked him back to life—and I saw the aftermath of that, Pep. I heard him screaming.” He hangs his head. “A video, there was a video—it just started playing. On Beck’s computer. Peter, he was—he was screaming for me. Terrified. And I never showed up. I never—I never showed—I never showed up.”

She leans in, hugging him now, and he hiccups, his oncoming sobs trying to choke him.

He can still hear it. He can still hear it.

“He hurt him. He tortured him, he was fucking _mean_ to him, Pepper,” Tony says, gasping, chin on her shoulder. “And Peter—he’s embarrassed. He’s _embarrassed_, and—and _ashamed_—I can see it in his face, hear it in his voice and I don’t—I don’t get it, I don’t _get it—_”

“He’s just like you,” Pepper says, rubbing the back of Tony’s neck. “He believes he should have been better—believes he should have gotten himself out earlier, been stronger—as wrong as he is, there’s no changing it, no convincing him.”

Tony lets out a stupid-sounding sob, wrapping his arms around her waist. “I can’t—Pep, he’s _good_, he’s good, he’s so—he’s still just a kid and that place—it was like a tomb, it was like he’d been buried and I don’t know—I can’t dig him out, I don’t know how to fix it. I don’t know how—I don’t know _how_—”

“Tony, breathe,” Pepper says, trying to soothe him. “Breathe, breathe. We’ll fix it. We’ll fix it. Beck’s gone. Peter’s safe. He’s safe. He’ll never be in that place again. He didn’t die there, he didn’t, he got out. He got out. We’ll get everything out of the warehouse and then we’ll demolish it, alright? Wipe it off the face of the earth.”

He can’t help but smile at that, since he thought the same thing. But he doesn’t even know what he wants with all that shit. He doesn’t want it around here where Peter can find it.

“I’ll get it done,” Pepper says. “No one’s gonna stop me.”

“I love you,” Tony says, tightening his hold on her.

“I love you too,” she says. “Don’t worry. We’ve got this, we’ll make it better. We’ll get all of that out of his head. I promise you we will. He’ll be himself again. Running around here, full of life.”

Tony’s crying only gets worse, and he feels like he’s suffocating down in the bottom of an open grave. Pepper traces her hands up and down his back, trying to bring him up to earth. 

But he sinks. He sinks and he sinks.

~

Peter is a shell.

He flits in and out, retreating, not speaking, his whole body like white noise. They speak to him but their voices don’t come through, just their mouths moving, faces contorting in fear and worry. He doesn’t want to worry them. But he can’t—he’s drowning. He can’t find his way to shore. 

It’s all black and white, it’s all fuzzy and high pitched and off kilter. Beck is talking and talking and talking, and it’s new, now that he’s seen him again. _Him_. If that could even be considered him anymore. Peter’s afraid that’s how he’ll present himself, now. Decomposing, teeth falling out, half-formless, eyeless—right now he can hear him, he can’t see him, but he can feel him coming, knows he’s around every corner, and how will he look, how will he look—

_HOW STRANGE, I TOOK YOUR EYE BUT NOW I DON’T HAVE EITHER ONE OF MY OWN!_

Peter doesn’t remember leaving the med bay. He remembers Helen giving him pills, remembers May, Tony, MJ and Ned gathering around him, but the next thing he knows they’re in the hallway, and MJ is pushing open the bedroom door.

Leia trills when she sees him, and that snaps him back for some reason, and his chin quivers as he fights tears. She leaps off the bed and starts rubbing on his legs, and he realizes he’s in his pajamas. He doesn’t remember changing.

He doesn’t know why seeing the cat is sending him over the edge, and he hiccups a little bit, climbing into bed and feeling her follow. He’s like a balloon that someone popped, and his head is throbbing with a pulsing migraine. Shining kaleidoscope auras. Beat, beat, beat, like a hammer to his head. He draws his knees up, facing the wall, and he can feel himself fading. Not sleeping, just fading, the light inside him dimming to a faint flicker. 

There was some exhilaration, being in a suit again. Some, until the darkness on his left side became too much to overcome. And part of him knew it was over, when the mugger was slashing at him. He was out in the world and he could feel the pull from the warehouse, could feel the manic laughter the corpse was giving out, could hear _I’ll always be with you_ echoing off every bricked building and dirty windowsill. This wasn’t like the other times Tony had brought him back out in the world. He was alone. He was alone, and he was close, and Beck was calling for him. 

_I’ll always be with you I’ll always be with you I’ll always be with you I’ll always be with you I’ll always be with you I’ll always be with you—_

Drawing him in. Dragging him under. An invisible string, just like he felt on the roof. Beck. Even in death, trying to yank him back.

He’s been alive in Peter’s head, but the pure shame and horror of the moment he died has been buried, trying to draw itself back up, a hand bursting out of a shallow grave. Peter didn’t mean to. He didn’t _mean to_. But he did it. He did it, his hands, his body, his soul—he fucking did it. No matter how evil Beck was, Peter didn’t want him dead. He doesn’t really want anybody dead.

He tries to stop it before it goes that far. All the fights he’s ever been in.

But he did it. He killed him. He’d known all along and he hadn’t wanted to know, had wanted to erase it, because they can’t know, they can’t, they’ll all think of him differently, because he’s a killer now. He’s a killer.

Tony knows.

Tony already knows.

They’ll all know soon.

He’d tried not to look. But then Tony started kicking him and he had to—Peter had to stop him, had to see—and Beck didn’t even look like a corpse anymore, no, he was something horrifying and rotting and subhuman, something Peter killed, something Peter made that way. He stopped his breath. Stopped his life.

A killer, a killer, he’s a killer. He’s broken, half a person, not even slightly half of what he once was. The warehouse made him remember. Beck took and took and took until Peter was only pain, only welts and chains and screams ripped from his throat. Only tears and shallow breath and praying to the empty space above his head. Only the bare essentials for a person to remain living.

He’s not himself anymore.

He never will be.

He draws in a big breath and doesn’t think he can get enough air. His eye socket isn’t covered. It isn’t covered.

But he doesn’t move to change that.

He lays in his bed and stares at the wall.

The storm starts again, the one in his head, swirling and ripping at the walls, drowning out their voices completely. Leia flattens herself out and scoots underneath his arm, cuddling in close to his chest and shoving her head underneath his chin. She’s already purring, and tears sting at his eye again.

He can feel the weight of the four of them sitting on the bed, and May leans in, kissing his temple. She does it gently, two times, but Peter doesn’t move. Ned touches his hip, MJ his waist, Tony his shoulder. It’s like they’re praying over him, even though he can’t hear them.

He doesn’t deserve them. Or this. Or anything.

He closes his eye.

~

The days blend together.

Weak light coming in through the windows signaling a new morning, May coming in and begging him to eat. Someone putting down food for the cat. MJ and Ned sitting there and talking about nothing one moment, then pleading with him the next. _Please eat, please talk to us. It doesn’t matter. Please say something._

They all know. 

Tony sits in there with him when no one else is around, or maybe they’re around and they’re not talking, just sitting in silence like they’re attending a wake. But Tony talks so openly that Peter thinks he must be on his own, he must be, because he wouldn’t say this kind of shit with anyone around to listen. Would he?

_You’re the best, kid. You know I love you, right? Shit, you’re better than me a thousand times over. You still are. You always will be. He was evil, Peter. He was evil and I know it hurts you, but what you did isn’t wrong. And it was an accident. It wasn’t your fault. Please believe me. Please._

Peter doesn’t move. He doesn’t move.

He doesn’t know how many days pass like that, in a haze, in a mess of smoke and fire and Beck deteriorating more and more every time he shows up. Leia is the only one that sees Peter’s face, and when he gets up slyly to use the bathroom, she follows him, eyes knowing and worried. He climbs back into bed and she cuddles up with him again, almost seeming exasperated with his behavior. He doesn’t listen to the rattling of his stomach, which he knows is gonna get him in trouble with May sooner rather than later.

He hears her in the hallway. 

_He’s not eating, Tony. We don’t even know if he’s drinking. If you don’t eat, you die. You die. He’s trying to die on us. And we’re letting him. We’re letting him._

Tony just says _May_ but then she cuts him off.

_No, no, we’re letting him. We’re letting him die, we’re allowing it._

Peter doesn’t know how many days it’s been when May stomps into the room, nearly letting the door slam behind her. Leia jumps, and Peter squeezes his eye shut tight. Beck is laughing.

“You’re gonna get up and you’re gonna eat something right now,” she says, her voice wavering. He’s shaking, afraid, because all the rest of it felt like they knew he wasn’t gonna respond, wasn’t gonna move in front of them—_why is he being this way why the hell is he being this way_—but now she’s addressing him head-on. He’s heard this tone before. 

“You’re gonna get up and eat something,” she says again. He can hear her shifting her feet. “I love you, baby. And I know you’re hurting. And all I—all I want to do is take your hurt away. But you are not starving yourself. Not in front of me. You can go in there and you can sit and not talk to us and not look at us, either, but you are coming out to eat. That’s it. I will drag you if I have to drag you.”

Peter tears up again, for the millionth time, and Leia bumps her head into his chin. 

_WOW, LITTLE PETER._

Peter shakes his head. 

“Don’t shake your head at me, Peter Benjamin—”

“Not you,” Peter croaks, his voice rough with lack of use. “Uh. Him.”

He hears May sigh, and then the bed dips as she climbs over to him. She kisses his cheek again, his temple, reaching around and wiping the tears off his cheek. “He’s not here,” she whispers, rubbing his shoulder. “He’s not here. He’s gone. I’m glad he’s gone. I don’t care how it happened. He has no place in your head and you need to tell him that, sweetheart. You tell that kidnapping son of a bitch that he has no place in your head or anywhere near you.”

Peter nods, swallowing hard. 

“Will you come eat?” she asks, softly, petting his hair. “It’s only me and Tony right now. Michelle and Ned are here but they’re downstairs with Sam and Bucky.”

That makes him perk up in interest slightly, but he doesn’t ask why. He feels like he’s got dark spots inside of him, like a computer that’s crashing, missing lines of code. There are steps he can’t take, not yet. Fear like cement and holding him in place.

His stomach rumbles, loud.

May sighs, kissing him one more time, and she leans over and takes the cat away. Peter turns, watching her movement, the arc of Leia in the air until May drapes her over her shoulder, and she gets up off the bed and stands beside it. “C’mon, honey,” May says. 

Peter draws in a breath, and follows her out of the room.

~

He sits with Tony and May, and eats chicken noodle soup. He doesn’t know whose idea it was, and it strangely touches his heart that they think he’s ‘sick’. He’s sick alright. Just like the first night when they fed him this same meal. Full circle. He’s back at it.

He doesn’t know if he’s afraid of them, afraid of what they see when they look at him, or if he feels like he doesn’t deserve them and their love. He doesn’t say anything, just eats the soup and the grilled cheese when Tony brings it in, completing the first night’s menu. Leia sits in his lap and sniffs at the edge of his plate, interested. 

Tony and May don’t try to talk to him. They sit on their phones, glancing up occasionally, and Peter can feel their worry. He wants to fix it, wants to fix himself, like he’s a car that needs a new part. 

But he doesn’t know. He doesn’t know.

When he’s finished, he leaves the room without saying anything, carrying Leia back with him.

~

More days. They leave his food in his room now and he eats it, and drifts in and out of his own head. He cries on and off, for what he’s done, what he’s lost, what he’s become, and he wishes he could drag himself out of his. _Save yourself. Save yourself._

But he sleeps, instead. Falls into deep nightmares, where dead Beck is chasing him, the warehouse crumbling and pinning them both together in a duel grave. In his nightmares, he kills Tony, just like Beck wanted him to. He stabs him, watches him die, and falls after him, grasping at him, sobbing, burying his face in Tony’s shoulder.

The blood is warm and coating Peter’s hands.

“_I’ll always be with you,_” Tony whispers, reaching up and touching Peter’s cheek with a trembling hand.

He streaks red blood across Peter’s jaw, and goes slack.

Peter always startles out of the nightmares, his whole body trembling like he’s on fire. Sometimes he’s alone, and he lays there in thick, lonely grief, and sometimes they’re there with him. He cries into Ned’s chest, Tony holds him close, May whispers in his ear and MJ presses kisses all over his face.

He doesn’t deserve them. He doesn’t deserve them.

He knows school has started because he hears Ned and MJ doing homework sometimes, hears them whispering back and forth about filling in Peter’s work, too. For some reason that makes him feel like an even bigger piece of shit, and his legs are like two impossible weights that even he can’t lift.

It feels like he wallows for years. Forever. A millennium. 

People start coming. It’s like May and Tony have finally given up on coddling him, and they’re trying to shock him out of it. Pepper comes in, talks to him, so do Steve, Bruce, Sam, Natasha. Bucky comes in and plays Gran Turismo, narrating the entire way, every crash, every turn. Peter keeps his back to all of them, feeling more and more undeserving of the attention by the minute, like a spotlight is on him and all his wounds and all his mistakes, missteps. 

Then Matt and Frank show up together. 

Peter doesn’t turn around, and they don’t try to make him. He can hear them dragging chairs around, which makes Peter realize Tony and May put chairs in here for his many visitors. That makes him feel weird, too.

“Some people just need to die, kid,” Frank says.

“What he means is,” Matt says, clearing his throat. “Beck was—he’s like a—scourge of the earth, Peter. What he did to you was—unacceptable and he could have done it to someone else.”

“Stark told me he threatened his six year old daughter,” Frank says, with vitriol. “Guy was a monster. Don’t punish yourself for this, little red. Don’t. I get that you’re just like Murdock here, protector of life, but one, you didn’t do it on purpose and two, you’re protecting innocent life by keeping him off the streets. He can never escape from prison. Never be let out on some technicality. He’ll never hurt anybody again.”

_Little red_. Frank always called Matt Red. 

They bicker back and forth a little bit after that, Frank mentions his girlfriend Karen and someone named Amy, and Matt talks about a case he’s defending for a woman from Queens. Peter just listens. And when they’re leaving, he turns over, blinking at their retreating backs.

“Frank,” he says. “Matt.”

They both turn around, like they’d thought he couldn’t speak anymore, either.

“Thank you,” he manages. Something he’s been wanting to pass on to all of them that have taken their time with him, despite how he’s acting, despite the dazed look in his eye and all the horror clinging to him.

They both smile at him. 

“Of course, Peter,” Matt says.

“Any time, kid.”

~

The parade of people was a bold move, and it might have shoved him forward a little bit, might have banished Beck from his room for the time being. Peter’s migraines let up, but half of him still feels paralyzed. He gets up, stares at himself in the mirror, and covers his left eye with his hand. He stares at himself for so long that his own face starts to become unrecognizable. 

A slip of paper slides underneath his door.

Leia sits up on the bed, peering over at it. Peter lets his hand down and walks over, bending down and picking the paper up.

It’s a drawing, from Morgan. And Peter isn’t Spider-Man this time—it’s just him, with his eye patch, and her sitting with him. They’re in some kind of oversized spaceship, and there are stars upon stars behind them, purples and greens coasting through the dark all around them. 

One of his tears nearly falls on it, brushing the edge of the paper, and Peter’s throat is tight. He sees the message on the back when he holds it up slightly, and he turns the paper over.

Her handwriting is big, and looping, and he can picture her asking Pepper how to spell the words.

_I MISS YOU BIG BROTHER PETER. I LOVE YOU._

Peter’s lower lip trembles and he shakes his head, wavering to his feet. He quickly puts the paper down on the dresser, grabs the green eye patch, putting it on as fast as he can. 

He yanks the door open, and he sees her there at the end of the hallway. She’s—she’s wearing her Spider-Man costume, which nearly bowls him over—and she’s walking away.

“Morgan!” he yells, probably too loud, but she whips around, her downcast face lighting up.

Peter bends down so he’s at her height, holding his arms out towards her. She doesn’t hesitate, and rushes towards him, her face screwed up with tears. She runs into his arms, wrapping her own around his neck and burying her face in his shoulder.

He cries too, holding the back of her head and keeping her close.

She’s safe. Nothing ever happened. 

He kept Beck from getting to her.

“I miss you too,” he whispers, not wanting to let go. “I love you, girly.” 

_I swear I won’t be like this forever. I swear I won’t._

~

He’s back and forth, stop and go, and he’s saying two words to them, three, a few sentences, and then back to nothing at all. It feels like a tightrope act above the Grand Canyon. He can feel his head smashing in (like Beck’s). His breath stopping (like Beck’s). Last words to open air (like Beck’s). 

Except Beck was talking to him. Trying to intimidate him. Even in death.

Peter doesn’t know how long it’s been.

_AND I REMEMBER HOW LOUD YOU SCREAMED, JESUS, PETER, IT WAS EMBARRASSING—_

Beck is pacing, back and forth in Peter’s room, and he laughs at Leia as she walks over to drink from her water bowl. He’s a corpse—not as bad as he was, but he’s got one eye, skin withering and brown, hair falling out. Pieces keep falling off of him, a finger here, part of his jaw there. He makes Peter want to throw up.

Peter sits on the bed, watching him, and his brows furrow. He feels a lump in his throat, his lips forming a grimace, and he can’t help but be afraid. He can’t help it. 

But there’s something else, simmering in his chest. It might be strength. He doesn’t know, he can’t even tell anymore because he so rarely feels it, but he tries to dig his nails in before it disappears altogether.

“You—you have no place here,” he says, looking at Beck.

Beck stops walking, and stares at him.

Peter breathes hard through his mouth. “You’re not real,” he says, voice wavering. “You’re not even you—”

_WHAT DO YOU MEAN?_ Beck says, throwing his arms out, showing off the festering wounds on his arms. _I’M ME. I’M RIGHT FUCKING HERE, PETEY PIE._

Peter shakes his head, ignoring the walls turning ash and black, ignoring the other villains in his life swooping in and joining the fray. “No,” he says, reaching up and wiping his eye. Trying not to cry, or be scared anymore. Even though he’s so scared. “No, you’re just—a memory. You’re just—me torturing myself. That’s it. That’s—that’s all.”

He gets a flash of all of it. Every day, every cut, bruise, cut-off breath, scream, prayer—all of it flies by, like seeing your life in the moments before death. The entire month. He feels the memories, sinks into them, gasps and winces and wishes he wouldn’t stay, wouldn’t get caught there.

He lost a month. But he could have lost much more.

That strength. He finds it in his framed photos—him, MJ and Ned in the mall. Him, May and Ben on Christmas morning. Him and Tony posing in the fake internship photoshoot. The only good photo he’s got of his parents, sitting in a big car parked on an air strip. Him and Morgan at the beach, on their family trip.

_Family._

Beck is screaming but Peter can’t hear him, just sees his mouth moving. Vulture, Scorpion and the others shoot forward, moving to attack him, but it’s like they’re stuck behind an invisible barrier. The fire damage on the walls recedes so it’s on their side of the room and not Peter’s, and he sits there, closing his eye.

He opens it a moment later and they’re gone. It’s all gone. The room is normal.

Peter lets out a warbling breath, wiping away another tear.

He doesn’t think they’ll stay away for good. But...it’s a start.

~

Peter tries. He tries harder than he was, but it still feels like there’s a dark cloud above his head, and he feels safer facing the wall in his bed, wallowing. He falls into a fitful sleep, half awake and half not, and his eye pops open again when he hears someone walk into his room. 

He can tell it’s Tony by the way his footsteps sound. Leia is dead asleep, stretched out along the wall, and she doesn’t even move when Tony sits down on the bed, patting Peter’s ankle.

“Hey, bud, you’re gonna come with me,” Tony says, gently. 

Peter’s brows furrow. He glances over his shoulder and Tony nods at him.

“It’s five in the morning,” Tony says. “Everyone’s asleep. But I knew you weren’t, I could hear you moving around in here.”

Peter stares at him. “Where’s May?” he rasps. 

“Sleeping on the couch with Happy and Sam,” Tony says. “Don’t worry, I wrote a note already and left it on the coffee table just in case they wake up before we get back. Michelle and Ned are here too, they’re in the guest room closest to the kitchen.” He pats Peter’s ankle again. “C’mon, just put on a hoodie and some shoes, we’re not gonna get out of the car.” He’s gentle but firm, and insistent. He doesn’t ask or speak in maybes. 

Peter blows out a breath, running a finger down the line of Leia’s spine before he gets out of bed. Tony stands up too, heading for the door and checking his phone. Peter pulls on the MIT hoodie and a pair of his sneakers, grabbing one of the eye patches off the dresser.

He doesn’t know why he’s going so easily, when he’s been so difficult lately. He’s been trying. He wants—he wants to keep trying. And Tony isn’t exactly asking right now. Like May and the soup.

“Ready?” Tony asks, from the doorway.

“Yeah,” Peter says, fast. 

Tony nods, and starts walking down the hallway. Peter closes the door until it’s open just a crack, so Leia can come and go as she wants. Peter follows Tony, glancing over at May, Sam and Happy, each one of them laying across another section of the couch.

They get into the elevator and Peter can feel his own tiredness, and he quickly pulls the eye patch on, adjusting it so it sits right.

“I’m making you more of those,” Tony says, glancing over at him. “Trying some without the string, might be more comfortable.”

Peter smiles at him, and leans over, resting his forehead on Tony’s shoulder. “You don’t have to,” he says, softly. 

“Yeah, I know,” Tony says, ruffling Peter’s hair. 

Tears prick at Peter’s eye again. “I’m sorry I’m being such an asshole.”

Tony scoffs. “You are—Peter, you could—you’re literally incapable of being an asshole.”

“Feel like one,” Peter mutters, still leaning on him. He thinks of the way Morgan was too damn scared to even come inside his room. She had to send the drawing in first, to test the waters. It makes him feel awful. “Are you taking me out to kill me?” he asks.

“Yes,” Tony says, fast. “But we’re gonna go for ice cream first.”

Peter straightens back up, laughing, shaking his head at him. They both lean back against the elevator wall, and Peter doesn’t try to ask again, because Tony is clearly trying to keep where they’re going under wraps. 

They finally reach the garage a couple moments later, and once they’re off the elevator, Tony leads Peter over to the black convertible. He opens the door to the passenger side so Peter can get in, and he quickly gets behind the wheel. He starts the engine, and puts the top down before he starts driving. 

“Relax, bud,” Tony says, pulling out of his parking spot. “Recline, huh?”

Peter laughs a little bit, wondering what the hell is going on here, but he reclines the seat anyway.

It’s not quite light out yet, but the sun is coming up, and it makes the sky look beautiful. Only having one eye doesn’t change that. There aren’t a whole ton of people on the road, which is so nice and rare for New York, and Peter actually allows himself to relax. He watches the sky as they drive, the remnants of stars, the new colors. 

“Friday,” Tony says, once they’re a ways down the road. “Put on the Peter playlist.”

“_Playing Amazing Peter P and the Gang,_” Friday says.

Peter snorts, smiles as _La Grange_ comes on. He scoots a little lower in his seat, and keeps watching the sky. He almost gets mesmerized by it, and then he realizes he’s not thinking, he’s not wallowing, he’s not running over memories, he’s not focusing on times past and things he can’t change. It’s windy and it’s nice and he’s calm, content. Completely in the moment.

He closes his eye, breathing in, breathing out.

And a bit later, he feels the car slowing to a stop. Peter pops his eye open, and—his heart leaps into his throat. 

They’re stopped underneath a bridge, but the entire bridge, it’s—it’s—

“So, they started this mural when you went missing,” Tony says, turning the music low. “But back then it was just gonna be the big Spider-Man going along the side. After the press conference, it became this whole—huge thing.”

Peter breathes hard through his mouth, looking around at everything. He takes his seatbelt off with fumbling hands.

The mural is—it’s all Spider-Man. Everywhere. All his suits and some he’s never worn before, all kinds of different styles, different flips, fights, backgrounds. Spider-Man giving finger guns, Spider-Man winking, Spider-Man in the middle of a big spider web. Spider-Man cascading through the air in front of a watercolor sunset.

Peter just—stares. It takes up the whole bridge. From side to side. Top to bottom.

“It’s been like a city project,” Tony says, bracing his hand on the back of Peter’s seat. “There are—Facebook groups, twitter threads with millions of retweets, honestly, I don’t know how the hell you haven’t seen it.”

“I—I didn’t,” Peter stutters, still craning his neck to look. His mouth is open wide, and he can almost hear Ben’s voice in his head. _You’re gonna catch flies, Pete._

“Well, it’s just been getting bigger and bigger,” Tony says. “Everybody comes from all over the place to participate in this. They’ve got professional artists sketching it out—this Morales kid, he’s a genius—and then the general public comes to paint and spray paint and fill it all in, with help and advice from the artists. And Pete, not one single person has vandalized it. Not once. You know what a big deal that is in New York.”

Peter snorts, half a sob, and he covers his mouth with his hand. 

“It was commissioned by an elementary school in Queens, uh—Queens Explorers Elementary, I think, and then it ran up the ladder and was backed by the mayor and the city government. So no one’s gonna touch it, kid. It’s gonna stay here.”

Peter sees the crates of paint materials off by the side of the bridge, neat and put away, an umbrella planted in the ground to cover them in case of shitty weather. He doesn’t know what the hell he’s feeling, but whatever it is swells in his chest and threatens to burst. Like butterflies. Like rays of sun and warm sand under his feet.

“You are—resoundingly loved,” Tony whispers, like someone is listening. “It’s not just something we say, Peter. It’s not just bullshit. _Everyone_ loves Spider-Man. You inspire everyone. Everyone. And you always will. They don’t do this for just anybody. This is—this is something, kid. I thought you’d like it.”

Peter hiccups, wiping at his eye, and he leans over, tugging Tony into a hug. He keeps staring at the mural over Tony’s shoulder, and feels him kiss his hair. 

Peter sighs, trying to breathe, and maybe he can make it. Maybe he can. “Thank you,” he whispers. “For—for everything, and for—for showing me.”

“There’s so much more,” Tony says, squeezing his shoulder. “This is just the beginning.”

Peter pulls away, nodding at him, and Tony wipes away some of his tears. Then his eyes glance up and over Peter’s head, and Peter twists around, finding what he’s looking at.

There’s a little girl standing there, eyes wide, wearing a Spider-Man shirt and oversized jeans. She can’t be much older than Morgan, and Peter sees what must be her parents crossing through the park and slowly catching up with her.

“You’re Iron Man,” she says, staring at Tony for a second before her eyes cut over to Peter.

“And you’re—you should be with your parents,” Tony says, pointing at her. 

“They’re right there,” the little girl says, pointing over her shoulder dismissively. “There’s one color of spray paint that’s my favorite and I’m working on the Empire State Building Spider-Man and I don’t want them to try and get at it before I get at it.”

Tony snorts. “You sound like my daughter.”

“I’m Samantha,” she says. She looks at Tony, but she keeps glancing at Peter, like she doesn’t think she’s supposed to. She blinks at him, but he doesn’t feel like she thinks he’s scary or weird because of the eye patch. No, he—he gets a feeling she knows more than she should about who he is. He doesn’t know how—whether it’s just the fact that he’s with Tony, or something else. A child’s intuition.

She doesn’t say anything for a second.

“Samantha,” Tony says. “Iron Man is speaking to you—you should wait for your parents—”

She looks back and forth between Tony and Peter rapid fire for a few seconds, and then she clears her throat. “Can you—tell Spider-Man something...for me?” she asks, tentatively, glancing at Peter again. 

“Uh, of course,” Tony says. “He’s very open to receiving messages.”

The parents get closer, and Peter sees panic cross their faces when they see their child by an unfamiliar car, but then realization dawns there too. That Samantha is talking to Tony Stark.

“Um, um, just tell him that—just tell him that he’s—he’s made me feel brave when I didn’t think—that I could feel brave, and when I broke my ankle during my last little rockets baseball game I just told myself that I was Spider-Man and that Spider-Man would be proud of me and I—I made myself stop crying.” She heaves a sigh, like someone much older than she is, and then she looks at Peter as she finishes up her message. “Just—I love him and he’s the best and I—I hope he’s okay. I hope he’s—I hope he’s proud of me.”

“He’s definitely proud of you,” Peter says, struggling to sit up a little straighter with how much he’s shaking. His breath nearly gets caught in his throat. “He is—he is absolutely proud of you, Samantha.”

Tony rests a gentle hand on Peter’s shoulder, and Samantha dissolves into a smile. 

“I’ll tell him,” Tony says. “I’ll pass along every word, alright?”

She nods, grinning, and then gives Peter a meaningful look. 

He doesn’t know how she knows, but she knows.

“We’re so sorry,” her parents say, rushing up to tug her away from the car. “We, she—she’s—she doesn’t normally talk to strangers.”

“I guess I’m technically not a stranger,” Tony says, patting Peter on the shoulder before he puts the car in drive again. “But I’ll pass it on, like I said, Samantha, huh?”

“Okay,” Samantha says, nodding, looking back and forth between them again. “Thank you!”

“Take care of Empire State Spidey!” Peter calls out. “I really—I really like that one.” It’s on the side of the bridge they’re facing, and it’s low enough for her to reach. The Empire State Building is glowing in red and blue, and an unfinished Spider-Man is leaning off the spire.

“I will,” she says, as teary as he feels. 

Tony slowly pulls back out into the road and takes off, and Peter laughs, covering his face with his hands. He feels something like elation and relief mixed together, and he might have broken out of it, might have dragged himself to shore. Might have found his way home. He doesn’t want to go and drop back into bed when he gets home. He wants to kiss MJ, he wants to hug May, he wants to dance around the room with Ned.

He can never thank Tony enough.

He knows there might still be steps back, knows there still might be dark moments. But maybe—maybe he can—try and be better. Try and—start down the road to where he once was. He knows Beck is gone, he knows that he—that he did that—but maybe—maybe he can get past it. Maybe he can forgive himself.

Tony reaches over, ruffling his hair. “How you doing, Pete?”

Peter pulls his hands down, and smiles at him, wiping away a tear that slips down his cheek. “Thank you for—bringing me there. That was awesome, it was—it was awesome.”

Tony pulls his hand back, tapping his fingers on the wheel. “Samantha wasn’t part of my master plan, I do not have an army of smart kids at my disposal. Maybe when Morgan stops being a marker hog at her school she’ll make more friends—”

Peter snorts, shaking his head. 

“But you liked it?” Tony asks, looking straight ahead.

“I loved it,” Peter says. “I _loved_ it.” He can’t properly express how much. He can’t believe it. He’d say it’s in his head, that he’s blowing how much people love Spidey out of proportion. But what Samantha said. And the bridge. The whole mural. 

“Good,” Tony says. “Now, we actually are gonna go get ice cream.”

Peter smiles, and relaxes back in his seat again.


	9. out there saving the world

Peter’s dreams are different now that he’s been back to the warehouse, now that he’s seen Beck again, now that he’s had the proper strength to tell him to get the hell out of his head. The dreams don’t put him there, don’t make him relive warped versions of what he went through—they saddle him somewhere different. Places he doesn’t know, places he doesn’t recognize. They all feel half frozen in fear, torn-up castle ledges, high walls in ancient ruins, places he’s been but can’t recall. He knows he’s been there because of the feeling in his chest, as if his heart is searching out the memories—the way his fingertips feel against a staircase banister, the way his voice echoes in a long hallway, the way he sees glimpses of faces he might know, if they’d only stay around long enough for him to look.

He doesn’t know what it all means. He sees spider webs, open graves, walls wet with mildew, and he thinks it’s what he was conditioned to see, but his brain is trying to bring him somewhere else. Red roses grow out of the cracks in the walls, sunbeams shine through broken glass, and there’s music coming from somewhere close by. A mixture of sadness and hope.

_Peter._

He stops walking, his bare feet cold on a tile floor. He looks over his shoulder, and sees a shadow, but not one he’s afraid of, not one he thinks he has to run from. He’s in a long hallway, and it almost looks like his school, if it had been abandoned and left to molder. 

_Peter. Hey._

It’s her voice, MJ’s. Nothing can sound like that—the kind of softness that he’s found recently only belongs to him, lyrical and stern at the same time. Searching. 

He looks down, because he feels the touch of her hand on his arm. A spirit, not anything dead and pleading, but something from the future—a vision. Drawing him close. The kind of touch he’s only dreamed about—but he is dreaming. And she’s not here. She’s coming from somewhere else.

The world rocks then, like an earthquake has it, and now he feels both of her hands on his shoulders.

_Peter. It’s okay._

“MJ?” he asks, trying to keep his footing.

“Peter. Wake up.”

He startles awake, feeling like he’s falling for a moment before he rights himself. He reaches up and touches the softer eye patch Tony made for him just in case he wants to go to sleep with something on, trying to remember when he put it on in the first place. He feels like he remembers wearing the black one. He doesn’t know what the hell he remembers. He doesn’t remember falling asleep.

“Hey, you okay?” MJ asks, concerned. “You were making some funny noises.”

“Yeah,” he says, glancing around. “Yeah, yeah.”

It’s been a week since Tony brought him to the mural. He knows that because he’s keeping up with his affirmations again, and he schedules something each day so everything doesn’t run together and feel too much like when he was taken. He’s been keeping up with his journal for Sam, his lessons with Bucky and Shuri, his training with Natasha and all his school work, which they’re sending to him along with recorded lessons now too, to make things easier. Everyone helps with his homework, and it’s sort of a thrill to watch Thor and Bruce argue over the meaning of T.S Eliot’s poetry. They don’t argue nearly as much about math, mostly because Thor hates it and doesn’t think Peter should have to deal with it at all. So Bruce takes the lead on that one, if Peter needs help. 

But he usually doesn’t. He just likes to have them with him.

He remembers all that, and he knows it’s Thursday, but he doesn’t remember falling asleep.

He especially doesn’t remember falling asleep with MJ next to him.

“What time is it?” he half slurs. 

“A little after three in the afternoon,” she says. 

That makes a little more sense than where his head was going, and the day starts to form around him. “Everybody okay?”

“Ned should be back soon,” MJ says. “He went out with Morgan and Tony and I know he’s gonna come back with way too much stuff. Leia’s sleeping in the corner. Lap of luxury. Some of the others are coming over for dinner, I think, but I didn’t get a guest list.”

Peter snorts. She smiles down at him, rubbing her thumb along the corner of his mouth. He watches her as she does it, half frozen, but she isn’t meeting his gaze, just watching her work. Still smiling.

“Had some chocolate there,” she says, pulling her hand back and finally looking at him. “Why are you such a messy eater?”

“I’m not always,” Peter says, a smile forming on his face before he can think about it. She scoffs at him, narrowing her eyes. “I’m _not_,” he insists, sitting up on his elbows. 

“Mhm,” she hums. “I’ve seen you with a piece of pizza. Don’t play with me. You got tomato sauce saved for the next three days in those chipmunk cheeks.”

He laughs, something deep in his chest, and she smiles bigger, tilting her head to look at him. There’s something else behind her eyes and he can’t really feel it out just yet, but whatever it is, it makes him feel warm all over. He’s been slowly moving past the freezing cold that’s been clinging to him since he escaped, but with her nearby, it gets easier. 

“What were you dreaming about?” she asks, intent.

He chews on the inside of his cheek, not looking away from her. “Uh, I don’t really know,” he says. “Not like I don’t remember, it just—I’m always sort of just—walking around random places. Sometimes it feels like I’m supposed to be there, sometimes I can sort of—recognize where I am, sometimes I can’t, but none of it is really—solid.” He blushes a little bit because it sounds stupid as hell. He shrugs. “I mean. I’m glad it’s not, you know. What I was dreaming about before.”

She nods and he’s gotta remember, he’s gotta remind himself that she actually wants to hear what he’s gotta say. 

“That’s good,” she says. “Is, uh—in these new ones, is there anybody there? With you?”

Peter clicks his tongue. “Um, not really, but—I, uh, felt you. UH, uh, waking me up, I mean, like—like you here, trying to wake me up. Nothing weird, just—like I could feel you touching me—no, I mean, shaking me, to, uh. Get me to wake up.”

_Oh my fucking God._

“Sorry,” he says. “None of that—none of that sounded—how I wanted it to sound.”

She looks like she’s trying not to laugh. 

And then she leans down and kisses him.

What he did to deserve a kiss, he has no idea, but he goes along with it anyway. He feels like he’s been getting better at this, but how good he is at it will never truly match how much he wants to do it. He’s at the worst angle ever, leaning on his elbows, and he sinks back onto the pillow, trying not to slam back down like an idiot. But she follows him, gracefully, like every other thing she does, whether she wants to be or not. 

She cups his cheek as their lips press together, and he grips her waist as she scoots closer. Being with her makes him feel insane, always, like he slipped into an alternate reality somehow, and he doesn’t think straight, especially when they’re kissing. He feels that warmth again.

He shifts so they’re both on their sides, and when he slides his tongue along her lower lip, she makes the slightest noise and he feels like he’s on fire. He reaches back and grabs his own shirt, trying to pull it off, and she helps, pushing it up his torso and casting it aside. Peter can hear it hit the wall, and the kiss breaks again, MJ pressing another soft one to his cheek before she looks down. 

There are a few marks left on him. Burns. He’s been watching them, and he doesn’t know what the hell Beck did to make them stick, but they’re healing much slower than they should. Helen wasn’t worried about it, and gave him an ointment to put on them every couple of days, which he actually forgot to do today. They’re ghosts of his pain now, going away at their own pace despite everything else disappearing, everything but the mental scars that he tries every day to deal with. 

MJ stares at the one up near his collarbone, brushing her fingers over it. Just as he’s about to say something, she leans in and presses a gentle kiss there. It’s enough to bring tears to his eye, and he closes it, sliding his arms up and around her. 

“MJ,” he breathes, half here, half somewhere else, but completely and utterly with her.

“You don’t know how much,” she whispers, kissing up his neck. 

He catches her lips again, the world twisting and tilting underneath them. There’s no more gravity. “What?” he asks. 

“How much I...how much…” She breathes out the words in between kisses, and he definitely feels drunk, clutching at her and tugging her against him. He knows what she _could_ be saying, and it floods his mind with feelings of his own. Onslaught.

That’s when the door slams open. 

They both startle with the sound, and Peter immediately feels like it’s someone who isn’t supposed to be here, even though _nobody_ should really be in here _in particular_, especially _right now_, but he sees it’s not a villain, not the ghost of his past or someone coming to steal him away. No, it’s just Ned, holding a large box that he’s paying attention to, rather than paying attention to them.

“Alright,” Ned announces. “I had to choose between like, six, and Morgan wasn’t helping and Tony was just telling me to get them all but like, I don’t think we have that much _time—_”

Peter immediately ducks under the comforter—or he tries to, because it’s bunched up between them and half in between his legs and half under MJ and _oh my God._

“Hey, did I—oh—oh no, did I—” Ned stutters. Peter isn’t looking at him, because he’s still struggling with the comforter and the sheets and the damn pillow—

“Yeah,” MJ says, still laying there, cool as a cucumber. “You did.”

“Pete,” Tony’s voice says, and Peter squeaks like the smallest mouse, launching himself forward so he can grab the other edge of the comforter because the edge closest to him has somehow glued itself to the bed and everything around it.

“I got the purple kind because they were out of the blue, but then in the car Morgan told me you’d been preferring the _red_ lately, so I don’t know if I should go back out or what—”

Peter wraps the comforter around himself like a cocoon, not looking at anybody or anything. He feels MJ shift closer.

“What’s going on?” Tony asks, worry in his voice. “We okay?”

“It’s fine!” Peter announces, voice muffled in the comforter. “It’s all fine, we’re all good!”

“No, no, I just—” Ned starts.

“Honey?” May’s voice asks now. “What’s going on?” The light in the room clicks on.

“It’s okay, May,” MJ’s voice says, as Peter’s horror blooms into a flashing sign above his head. _WAS JUST SUPER TURNED ON AND EMOTIONAL AND MAKING OUT WITH HIS GIRLFRIEND. COME ONE COME ALL._

The bed shifts again with MJ getting up, and Peter tries to completely bury his face in the covers. If Morgan comes running in here next, he’s pretty sure he’s actually gonna die.

“Oh,” Tony says. “Oh. I see what’s going on here.”

“Yeah!” Ned declares. “Let’s, uh, let’s—”

“Oh my god, sweetie, okay,” May says, and Peter hears MJ laugh, and they might be hugging, good lord. 

“Let’s go—where’s Leia, oh there she is, in the cat bed,” Tony’s voice says. “Okay, she’s the only audience member allowed, everybody out—Wilson, stay down that hallway—”

“Oh my God,” Peter groans. 

“I’m so sorry, Peter,” Ned pleads. 

“It’s okay, Ned,” Peter says, shifting back and forth inside his pile of covers. He hears them all stomping away, and it almost sounds like Tony is making more noise than he needs to be. Peter can hear Sam’s voice down the hall, and Bucky’s too, so that phrase was absolutely not a joke and definitely a real warning. He can hear May whispering to Tony, hears a squeal of glee, and he wants to dissipate into nothing and come back when no one can remember this.

The door closes, their voices raucous in the hallway, and he feels MJ sit back down, wrapping her arms around him.

“Can you even breathe in there?” she asks, pulling at the material around his face. “You’re gonna burn up from all the blushing.”

“Leave me here,” Peter groans, shaking his head.

“Uh, nope,” MJ says, kissing his temple. She proceeds to move around him, climbing all over on the bed and peeling him out of his self-imposed comforter cocoon. He snorts when she tosses it aside, fully freeing him, and then she shocks the shit out of him by climbing into his lap. 

“What if they come back in?” Peter whispers, automatically closing his arms around her.

“They’re not gonna,” MJ says. “Now that Ned’s made the mistake he will absolutely stand guard, and nobody’s gonna bowl him over, it’d be too sad.” 

He stares up at her, the lights on the ceiling haloing behind her head. 

“What?” she asks, gripping his shoulders. 

He’s got too much to say. Too much. He doesn’t know how he’s holding it all in his head. He doesn’t know how he can feel so much like this for one person.

“Getting smooshy on me,” MJ says, running a reverent hand through his hair. “Huh, Parker?”

He gazes up at her. “Yeah,” he says, voice breaking. _She wants to be here. She really wants to be here_. “Yeah. Real smooshy.”

She smiles, beautifully, and leans down, kissing him again.

~

He’s in the kitchen a little while later, with Tony, the two of them making dinner. Sam recommended cooking as a way to keep his mind occupied, and especially cooking with Tony, because he so rarely knows what he’s doing. 

Tony keeps eyeing him as he cuts up onions, and Peter narrows his eye back, trying to put together the salad under Tony’s severe scrutiny. He can hear one of May and Sam’s ‘discussions’ in the other room, with Steve and Happy attempting to moderate. Peter has super hearing, and all his senses are amped up even more thanks to his time with Matt, but he still can’t focus on what the hell they’re saying, because they’re all talking over each other.

Tony looks over at him again.

“What?” Peter asks, looking back. “Is my salad-making not up to your standards?”

Tony scoffs. “No, your salad-making is fine.”

“So what’s with the weird face?”

Tony glances over his shoulder, still holding onto the onion with one hand. “Uh, I know you’re eighteen now and all that, but has May, uh, had the _talk_ with you yet—”

“Stop,” Peter nearly yells. “Erase. Roll back.”

“Sorry, sorry. Apologies.”

“Just. Rewind,” Peter says, his face burning red. “We’re not, we’re—not, uh—and May, she, she has—but it doesn’t—I _know—_”

“Forget I said anything,” Tony says, snorting and looking away from him. “I’m messing with you.”

Peter huffs at him, tossing a few more olives into the bowl. “You’re the worst,” he says. “You’re all the worst.”

“Ned really slammed up in there with a vengeance,” Tony says. “Maybe next time put a sock on the door or something.”

Peter half laughs, leaning down and pressing his forehead to the counter. “I’m just gonna lock it like a normal person,” he says. 

And it strikes him. He feels _normal_. He hasn’t had an incident in days now, he hasn’t seen Beck since Tuesday, the nightmares aren’t debilitating, they don’t bleed into his waking moments and make him dissolve into something he doesn’t recognize. He’s got a girlfriend, they’re teasing him, it isn’t _serious_. Everything was serious—for a while, everything was amped up, horrifying, each day hiding something in the dark, something that could hurt him and take him and change him.

But now he feels normal. He actually feels genuinely normal.

He listens to Tony laughing behind him. “Pete, I’m sorry, bud, I didn’t—” Tony gasps. “Shit.”

Peter immediately straightens back up, turning around to see what happened. He sees Tony clutching his hand, and there’s a slash of blood across his palm. 

There’s a brief, brief moment of panic—he remembers so much of his own blood, everywhere—but he sees Tony wince and the memories quickly fade to darkness. Peter moves over closer, and looks at the cut more intensely. 

“Not too deep,” Peter breathes, heart in his throat. 

“Goddamnit,” Tony says. “Knives are too fucking sharp.”

Peter grabs one of the dish towels. He presses it to Tony’s hand, and tugs him away from the counter and in the direction of the bathroom.

“Pete, it’s fine,” Tony says. “I can—”

“I’ve seen you try to take care of yourself,” Peter says, trying to weave through the yelling in the next room, not let it distract him from his goal. “Usually it consists of you sitting there and Pepper telling you what you need to do.”

“I mean, it’s—listen, it’s just small, I’ll smack a band-aid on there, we’ll be golden.”

“Hey, what’s wrong?” Pepper asks, as they move past, her voice rising up above the rest. “What’d you guys do?”

“Nothing!” they both say at the same time, though Tony sounds more pained than Peter does. He tries not to be so obvious in the way they’re walking, and they quickly turn into the bathroom when Peter gets them there. He flips on the light, and he can see the blood seeping through the dish towel.

“Well, we’re gonna have to throw this away,” Peter says, nodding down at it.

“Not one of Pepper’s favorites,” Tony says. “I think we’re in the clear. Now, if it had been one of the _blue_ ones—”

Peter laughs, almost mechanically. He puts the blood-sodden dish towel aside. He twists the water on, making sure of the temperature, and then he puts Tony’s hand underneath it.

“Pete,” Tony says. 

“I’m gonna put a little soap,” Peter says, glancing at him quick, too fast to get a read on his expression. He grabs the pump and then it smells like a Christmas tree or something—Tony’s notorious ability to have Christmas soap at any time of year, like Ned said. Peter doesn’t really think he noticed before today.

Tony winces, but immediately starts gently pushing the bubbles back and forth along the cut, his nose upturned.

“Sorry,” Peter whispers, and he moves for the medicine cabinet, single-minded. He grabs the bactine and some bandages. He doesn’t listen out for his heart, or whatever thoughts are forming in his head. Tony’s hurt. He’s hurt. That’s the priority right now. Peter helps clean out the cut with the soap, finally turning off the water. He pats the wound dry, and holds one of the bandages to it to try and staunch the bleeding. 

He sighs, and looks up, seeing Tony watching him. “What?” Peter asks, holding the pressure.

There is a world of fondness in Tony’s eyes, the kind of thing that still shocks Peter whenever he sees the extent of it. He laughs a little bit and Tony smiles wider, shaking his head. “Look at you,” he says. “Real swift, jumping right into action. No bumping into anything, no knocking me into anything because you were literally _dragging_ me—”

Peter snorts. “Sorry.”

“No, you—you’re still you, kid,” Tony says, reaching out with his free hand and ruffling Peter’s hair. “But now it feels like you might—feel it too.”

Peter blows out a breath, nodding. He puts the bandage aside and starts to apply the bactine. “Did you cut yourself on purpose to see what I’d do?” Peter asks, looking up at him. 

Tony scoffs, glaring at him. “No,” he says. “Though, with some of the shit I’ve done, I don’t—I don’t blame you for wondering.”

Peter cracks his jaw, and unrolls the other bandage, starting to wrap it around Tony’s hand. “There was like, a quick moment, when I first saw the blood that—at the beginning of all this, it might have—stopped me in my tracks. Set something off.”

“But it didn’t,” Tony says. 

Peter shakes his head. He’s been making use of the things Matt’s told him, and half the time he can make up the schematics of his surroundings and build them in the darkness. Fill in the empty part of the picture. Especially here, in the tower. He knows every inch of it. 

“No,” Peter says, getting strangely emotional. He pins off the bandage, nodding at it. “No, it—it didn’t.”

Tony holds up his hand, twisting it around and looking at Peter’s work. “Perfect,” he says. “Just like new. Thanks, bud.”

Peter didn’t really think. He didn’t let the blood stop him, he just—Tony was hurt, Tony needed help, and he did it. Like he always used to.

“Let’s go back out there and make sure I didn’t bloody up the onions too much,” Tony says, draping his arm around Peter’s shoulders and leading him out of the bathroom. “I would absolutely get chopped on _Chopped._”

Peter smiles to himself.

He finally feels...useful. Necessary. 

The person to take care instead of being taken care of.

“We all good?” Rhodey calls, from the middle of the ongoing argument in what Tony insists on calling ‘the relaxation pit’. 

“Yeah,” Tony says, looking at Peter. “We’re all good.”

~

A couple days later, Peter makes a decision.

“Okay, we’re here, and we’ve got you,” Natasha says, standing in front of him, shoulder to shoulder with Bucky. He looks a lot less sure than she is, and Shuri is on the floating monitor behind them, typing on her tablet.

Peter’s own heart is raging in his chest. 

They’ve been working with the words by working around the words. Attacking them from behind corners, always with a shield, never facing them head on. He hasn’t heard the words, he doesn’t even know the words, but they have yet to confront them by simply saying them to him. They’ve done every other thing, all the instructions Shuri has laid out for Bucky to help Peter rewire his brain, but they haven’t gotten to this point yet. 

He’s felt like a new person since he found out they cremated Beck’s body. Since they got rid of all the illusions, destroyed the remaining drones and tech, and put in the papers to get the place demolished. He’s felt like a part of the world opened up to him again when Pepper held him close and told him she’d made sure the demolition was fast tracked, and that every bit of Beck would be wiped from the earth, soon. 

So this was his idea. He wanted to try this. Because he wants Beck’s influence on him to be wiped from the earth, too. 

“Tony isn’t gonna like it if he finds out we’re doing this,” Bucky says, eyes cutting back and forth between the two of them. “And...Steve would be...uh, unhappy with me if Tony was...unhappy.”

Natasha scoffs at him. “Listen, Tony wants what Peter wants, and Peter wants to try. He’s done a lot of work, he deserves this chance. And we’re here, we’ve got Shuri, it’ll be alright. He’s got this. Right?” she asks, looking at him. “You got this?”

“I—I got this,” Peter says. He swallows hard. He knows they’re gonna do the one that makes him pass out, because he told them the other one was too dangerous, despite the two of them being fighters and Bucky having a metal arm. He just—Peter cannot deal with hurting anybody else. Not when he’s been doing so well. 

Bucky looks less than ready, but he steps closer to Peter all the same, and so does Natasha on his left side. They’re the only two that know he’s doing this, other than Shuri, and Peter only briefly considers how May and Tony might react if they found out.

“Okay,” Peter breathes, looking at them both, because he knows they need verbal confirmation, not just nods or shaky exhalations. 

Natasha holds onto his arm. “Wooden,” she says. 

It’s like something is _pushing him_, bodily moving him somewhere full of darkness, of no thinking, and he feels like ghostly hands are physically trying to pluck the thoughts out of his head, trying to shut his brain down.

“Put yourself in the moment, Peter!” Shuri yells, almost like she’s really here. “It is just a word!”

He heard it. He sways on roller coaster ground and grips the arms on either side of him. The air around him turns to water and he’s in a fish bowl. He can barely breathe.

“Focus, Peter,” Bucky says. “Last time this was drop and gone, you’re doing incredible.”

Peter groans a little bit, under twenty mattresses, someone hitting him over and over and over again. Beck, it’s Beck hitting him, but he’s not here anymore. He’s not here.

“You’re overcoming it, Peter,” Natasha says. “It’s just conditioning, that’s all it is, but you’re stronger than that—”

“Use your environment!” Shuri yells. “Put yourself here, now!”

He feels like he’s pushing a truck up the road. No, not a truck, a spaceship, grounded, filled with anvils, filled with weights, filled with bodies. People speak over each other in his head, real people, people from illusions, Beck’s own concoctions and scenarios.

“Peter, Peter, you’ve got this, come out on the other side,” Bucky says.

He feels Natasha grip his upper arm, and the touch is grounding. “Listen, I’ve had people in my head, Bucky has too. We’ve had people try to make us someone else, try to force us to be things we didn’t want to be. You _are_ stronger than that.”

He wants to close his eye. No, no, he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to.

_I’M STILL HERE. YOU’RE STILL MINE._

“No,” Peter manages.

“You are,” Bucky says. “Wait—are you hearing him? Because fuck him, Peter. Fuck that guy.”

It’s funny, it’s funny and he wants to laugh, and something eats at the darkness trying to consume him. Something bright and powerful.

“You’re surrounded by love on all sides,” Natasha says. “Finding my family is what brought me to a real place, Peter, a place where I felt real, where I felt like—myself, for the first time. You have a family here, Peter. Everyone loves you and who you are and he _cannot_ change you without your consent. And he doesn’t have it. He doesn’t have it.”

“He doesn’t,” Shuri yells. “Take it back.”

“Take it back,” Bucky repeats. 

Peter has to focus. Sam told him to renovate the place in his head. To change it from a place of hiding to a place of serenity. A place of calm.

He breaks away from the truck. From the heaviness. He’s Spider-Man, he’s _Spider-Man_, and he’s stronger than that. Those things aren’t shit to him. He can lift tons and tons and tons. It doesn’t faze him. It doesn’t. 

The changes aren’t completely made with the place he used to retreat to, but there’s a stairway leading up to it now, a thatched wall he can run his fingertips along, and a big spacious room at the top of the stairs, with a window facing a beach. Ocean as far as the eye can see. There’s no horror, no peril, no torture and no death. No despair, no cries ringing out into the night. It’s calm. It’s peaceful. He can feel them all there. All of their strength like a nucleus in one spot, centering him. Bringing him back. 

He stands at the top of the stairs in that place and breathes in, breathes out. It feels like forever, like his whole future unfolds while he’s standing there.

And finally, he hears Natasha calling out for him.

“Peter,” she says. “Bucky, should we—”

“There he is,” Bucky says, as Peter slowly opens his eye. “Hey, kiddo, what’s—what’s going on in there?”

“He got through it!” Shuri says, on the screen, slamming her hands down on the desk in front of her.

“I sort of feel like I’ve been run over by a train,” Peter says, knowing full well what that fucking feels like, and he sways, trying not to topple over. “But yeah,” he says. “I’m—I didn’t pass out.”

“You okay?” Natasha asks, still holding onto him. 

“Uh, what the hell is going on?” Tony’s voice asks. 

Peter goes still.

He can imagine what it looks like. He makes sure he’s got his footing, stars in his eye, and Natasha helps him turn. Tony is standing in the doorway, and worse yet, May is with him. They take in the whole scene wearing matching grimaces, and Peter feels like he’s been caught doing something he wasn’t supposed to do. He reaches up and touches his eye patch, picking at the string.

“What are we doing?” Tony asks, hands on his hips, and he glances at May. “Because I thought we were training, if we were down here in one of these rooms. And this doesn’t look like training, this looks—”

“Suspect,” May says, crossing her arms over her chest.

“Yeah,” Tony says. “Good vocab word. Suspect.”

Natasha and Bucky let go of him, and thankfully, Peter doesn’t fall over. 

“Yeah, I’m gonna—” Shuri starts, behind them, and Peter hears the screen click off. He’d laugh, if not for the looks on their faces. He takes a few deep breaths, starting to feel stronger again. 

“We—absolutely were training,” Bucky says, holding his chin high. “We were training. That’s what we were doing.”

“Why are you so bad at lying?” Tony asks, cocking his head at him. “You should be better at it.”

Natasha sighs heavily before Peter can work up something to say. “Look, Tony,” she says. “May, we—I’m gonna be up front here—”

Peter can tell the way she’s talking that she’s gonna try and take the blame, and he can’t handle that. “I asked them to test one of the trigger words with me,” he says, and immediately their faces change—two duel looks of horror, their bodies shifting defensively. “No, guys, it was fine. It was good. It _worked._”

“Which one?” May spits out, looking at Bucky and Natasha in betrayal.

“The one that makes me pass out,” Peter says, swallowing hard. He can hear it in his head, but he doesn’t falter. He doesn’t let it get its claws in him. “But I didn’t. I didn’t pass out.”

“He overcame it, all on his own,” Natasha says. 

“We were just here—just in case,” Bucky says. “He’ll be past it soon, soon it’ll be—just a word again. Won’t mean anything but what it means.”

Peter watches as a slew of emotions flood across Tony and May’s faces, and pride is definitely among them, along with things Peter has seen before, felt before too. He wonders if he should have asked them to help him with this. But he almost feels like they’re—too close to it. Too close to him, to purposefully say one of those words that could cause hurt. He didn’t even want to ask them to be here, when it happened. 

He thinks they know this. 

“That’s amazing,” May says, a little teary, and she nods, looking down at the ground. “That’s amazing, sweetheart.”

“I knew you could do it, Pete,” Tony says, clearing his throat. 

“Thanks,” Peter says, tentatively. He still feels a little shaky, but he’s mostly here, mostly back to regular programming, but he knows there’s something wrong with the way they’re acting. They’re not—they’re not yelling at him, or saying he did something wrong. 

“Uh,” Tony grunts, moving closer to the door again. “We just, uh—couldn’t find you and Happy was about to go get Michelle and Ned and—uh. Yeah.” He’s specifically avoiding looking at Peter, and he looks at Natasha instead. “Just be careful, yeah? Lunch in about an hour for whoever wants it.” He pats May on the arm, and then he leaves, the door swinging closed behind him.

Peter stares at her. “Uh, you’re not mad, right? Is he mad? He doesn’t seem mad, but he seems—weird.”

“No, he’s fine,” May says, shaking her head. “We’re fine. It’s fine.” She gives him a weird, _weird_ smile, and then she quickly leaves too.

Peter gapes at the closed door, and spins around, looking at Natasha and Bucky. 

“I’ve got no idea,” Bucky says, letting his hands slap down on his thighs. 

“They’re just worried about you,” Natasha says. “That’s—that’s it.”

Peter blows out a breath. “Okay, I’m gonna—thank you, I just gotta go see what, exactly—”

“No, go,” Natasha says, smiling softly at him.

“Thank you,” Peter says, backing up, turning around and going after them.

When he gets out into the hallway he sees May trailing a little behind Tony, and they’re definitely talking. 

“Hey, hey, I’m sorry,” Peter calls, watching as they turn around. 

“No, sweetie, it’s fine,” May says, sniffling. “We’re just—we were just discussing—”

“You’re a lot stronger than us, kid,” Tony says, and he wipes at his eyes, because they’re _both_ crying. “To do that, and to know that we couldn’t be in there for it, and we can’t even be mad because you’re absolutely correct, because we couldn’t have been in there for it—”

“Because the very idea of it going badly and you putting yourself in that situation on purpose, because you’re so brave, baby, it just, it just...it just hurts so much,” May says, shaking her head. “And we’re just—we’re wrecks—”

“And you’re trying to protect us and I hate that you’ve even gotta think that way, because you know we’re—like May said, wrecks, and shit, if I were you, I’d do the same thing, but would I have tried to stop you, here, in this situation? Probably—”

“Me too,” May says. “We’re just—”

“We’re both just so proud of you—”

“And we’re really obnoxious,” May sobs, glancing at Tony, cry-laughing, and he does the same thing back at her, and Peter has no idea what’s going on. “Moral of the story is, we’re proud, we’re sorry, you’re doing so good, baby, no matter what you think—”

“We just hate the idea of you possibly putting yourself through—any hurt—”

“But you’re so strong that you—you know what you’re doing, you know better than we do—”

“You know the people to ask, too—”

They keep talking, more than a little manic, and Peter feels like they’re running on the same wavelength, feels like they’re both feeding into the same panic attack. He knows they’re not mad, which eases his heart, but he feels like they need help right now and he doesn’t really know how to fix it. He knows they’ve been in this too—with him, every step of the way, and he knows how much it would kill him if something like this happened to either one of them, especially May, who doesn’t have an iron suit to protect her, who’s been there for him from the beginning. But seeing either one of them hurt, like he’s been hurt—it would drive him insane. He would have gone off the deep end by now.

They’re still talking over each other and both trying to stop crying, and Peter closes the distance between them, tugging them both against him into a hug. 

“Peter—”

“Sweetheart—”

And then he starts singing. 

“Why do you build me up...buttercup, baby, just to let me down, and mess me around, and then worst of all—worst of all—you never call me when you say you will, say you will, but I love you still—I need you! More than anyone, darling, I know that I have from the start—so build me up, buttercup, don’t break my heart…”

He trails off, realizes they’re both quiet, and he buries his face in both of their shoulders, drawing them closer. “I love you guys,” he whispers. “Just—I’m okay because of you. Because of MJ, and Ned, and everybody else, but it’s—it’s because of _you_.”

“We love you, Peter,” May whispers, kissing his head. “Beyond all the stars in the sky, honey.”

“We really love you, kid,” Tony says. “Sorry I’ve made your aunt more of a mess by association.”

Peter snorts.

“He knows I was already there,” May says. “You do too, you’re just being polite.”

Tony sniffs. “I’m nothing but polite.”

Peter smiles, and holds onto them both, tight as he can. He can feel Ben here, in his heart. Peter knows he would have liked Tony. Would have approved of all this. Would have laughed for days at the way May and Tony interact.

Peter’s so glad he has them both.

“Our little buttercup,” May says, and Peter laughs again. 

~

Peter makes plans to go back to school. It feels like a big step, bigger than any of the others he’s made, because he knows that he’ll have to explain what happened to his eye. There’s no getting around it. They have literal sit-down meetings, making up of what Ned dubs the Spidey Squad (Peter, Ned himself, Happy, MJ, May and Tony), and discuss fake stories that’ll be easy for Peter to remember. A car accident in Prague after they last saw him. A random mugging when he got back to New York. Peter wonders if the sympathy alone will get people to back off with the questions, but knowing some of the kids in his school, he’s sure he’s got a few new nicknames coming for him.

There are so many problems looming in his future that he doesn’t know how to deal with, doesn’t know how he’ll behave when they finally cross his path. Some days he feels like he can take on the world, and others he feels like he needs to shrink back, stop trying. There are so many things he doesn’t know yet. So many things he hasn’t faced.

But he’s come a long way. A long, long way from reflecting streets that felt like whiplash, from one word in his head when he stumbled away from death and horror, with blood caked on his face.

He tries to give himself credit. But that’s hard too.

Peter sighs to himself, cracking his neck. Leia struts back and forth, rubbing against Thor’s legs. Thor beams down at her, and Peter can’t help but smile when Thor smiles. Most people would pay cold hard cash to see what’s going on all around Peter at the current moment—he’s doing yoga, led by Sam, with Rhodey, Thor and Tony. It was May’s idea, she thought it would relax him, and it’s been working out pretty good so far. It’s the second time they’ve done this, and Peter didn’t really think anybody could be competitive at yoga, but somehow, Thor’s managed it.

Leia seems to like it all well enough, traipsing around between the five of them and periodically picking at her food bowl.

“I never felt like less of a person,” Rhodey says, as they all vaguely follow Sam’s movements, flopping into a rag doll. “You shouldn’t either, Pete. I mean, the recovery was hell, Tony knows that.”

“Uh, yeah,” Tony says, as they stretch back up, arms above them.

“But that’s how it goes, usually,” Rhodey says, looking back at him. “It’s still going, after all this time. And I don’t consider that—any reflection on me or who I am.”

“You can still be you,” Peter says, and he stops stretching and sits down, crossing his legs in a bout of frustration. He feels like they’re all used to that, because they keep going without him. “You can still suit up and—and take care of business. I can’t.”

“You _will_,” Tony says, without looking at him.

“You’re impatient, kid,” Rhodey says. “It hasn’t been that long at all.”

“I’ve had friends take years off after injuries,” Sam says. “But then they go back. They keep doing their thing.”

“And Tony helped me,” Rhodey says. 

“I’m not gonna let anything take Spider-Man from you, kid,” Tony says, glancing back at him now. “You know that.”

“Like I told you before,” Thor says, in a big booming voice. “Stark will make you anything you desire.”

Tony clears his throat.

Peter looks off at Leia, flopping down by the weights in the corner and rolling onto her back. 

“Thor, you should ditch the eye the raccoon gave you and be eye patch buddies with Peter and me,” Tony says, walking over to his water bottle and taking a sip. “You know I’ve got all kinds of styles, I could whip something up for you.”

“I would enjoy that,” Thor says, still following Sam’s movements. “And donning the eye patch does make me feel a bit closer to my father, in a strange way. Almost like I’m—emulating him.”

Peter doesn’t have anyone to emulate that’s missing an eye other than Thor, who got a replacement, and Fury, who’s cool but not exactly his favorite. He sighs, picking at a spot on his knee that’s smooth now, but was scabby and ugly for the longest time.

“Did you think less of Stark when he had to have his arm replaced?” Thor asks, a little quietly.

Peter’s heart leaps, and he instantly looks at Tony, his brows furrowed. “No, no, not at all.”

Tony smiles softly at him.

“So why has your opinion of yourself fallen so low?” Thor asks, and now he stops stretching too, giving way for both Rhodey and Sam to stop and look at him. Then at Peter.

Peter’s eye cuts over to Tony again, and he can almost read his mind, the things he’s said a thousand times that always hit the glass wall Peter’s built up in his head. _You hold yourself to too high of a standard, you’ve gotta cut yourself some slack._ He doesn’t know how. He never will.

“Tony is Tony,” Peter says, not looking at him. “Tony is Iron Man. And don’t say I’m—”

“_YOU’RE SPIDER-MAN_,” all four of them say at the same time.

Peter sighs, feeling childish and stuck all over again. It’s a different kind of feeling than when he was so low, after the warehouse, after everything came out. Now he feels like he’s truly out of the cage, finally unshackled, and he should be doing better. He’s doing good, but he should be doing better.

“Peter, I get this frame of mind,” Sam says, ever the mediator. “But we’re gonna need to reassess—”

Peter’s heart leaps into his throat, and the room is doused in darkness, the four of them disappearing. He can’t see anything, it’s so dark, and he hears howling, like ghosts in the air, ghosts sweeping through him, possessing him. Then everything is loud, screaming and sawing and bones breaking, buildings collapsing, and he can feel it all, he can feel all of it, he can feel Beck carving out his eye, can feel the knife going in, the nerve endings firing, the last thing he saw through his left eye—Beck, bent over him, emotionless, determined, focused, and the darkness flooded in and he could hear it, he could hear him step on it—

Peter scrambles back, hitting something, and he thinks it’s a wall but it feels like it has hands, feels like it’s yanking at him, clawing at his throat. He stumbles away when he feels a noose wrapping around his neck, he tries to yank it off, yank it off—

He can’t think straight, it’s all jumbled—

He hears himself screaming, he hears May, Tony, MJ, Ned, Morgan—all of them, all of them in pain, being tortured, but he can’t move, he can’t move, he’s too afraid, he’s too afraid—

Goosebumps, his chest tight, eye bulging and filled with tears, throat all clogged up with emotion and he practically collapses down to the ground, huddling his knees up to his chest—

He rocks back and forth, adrenaline and panic rushing through his veins, please no, please no, please no—

Beck’s hysterical laughter.

No, no, he’s dead—he’s dead—Peter remembers, he remembers, because he killed him—

Beck looms in the darkness, half himself, half a corpse, his eye falling out of its socket. He grins, tilts his head, dirt and worms falling out of his ear, and it’s macabre, horrific, and he approaches, and he gets closer, and even when Peter buries his face in his arms, closes his eye, he can still see him. 

The decomposing hand threads through Peter’s hair, and Peter trembles, crippled by something, unable to move, unable to fight for himself, unable to do _anything—_

The darkness won’t go, it won’t go, it won’t go—

He can’t breathe—

He’s so afraid, he’s so fucking afraid—

He grips his knees and hums to himself, willing it to be over, willing it to be done, please, please, please—

The sounds get louder, all around him, people he can’t help, the extent of his torture, his own pain, May being ripped limb from limb, Tony being burned alive, MJ screaming, shrieking for help in a way he’s never heard before, and all of their voices mix together into something monstrous and big and stifling.

He doesn’t know how long he sits there before it fades away, before the darkness dissipates into his surroundings, before the screeching and blaring isolated terror slowly fades into concerned voices. Close. Hands that aren’t Beck’s, clutching at him, trying to soothe him back to reality.

“Peter,” Tony’s voice says. “Peter, look at me, look at me, you’re okay. You’re alright.”

“Sweetheart,” May’s voice says, because apparently it’s been long enough for them to get her in here. “Honey, you’re fine. You’re fine.”

“You’re right here with us, Peter,” Thor’s voice says, surprisingly comforting.

“Oh God,” Peter groans, his eye still squeezed shut. He knows it was a word, he knows, because the memories come hurtling back now that door’s been opened. Beck did this one the most. Whenever he was feeling particularly nasty, which was always, and he liked to see Peter with the wind knocked out of him, liked to see him cowering. It took a while to nail it in, but Peter remembers all the attempts, remembers when it finally took hold and he felt like that—like _this_—for the first time. It’s how he knew Beck had him. Really had him.

The word he used for fear. Fear, ramped up, knocked off the scale. Fear nearly bad enough to give him a heart attack.

He sobs, the weight of this new failure crushing all the recent successes. He was already frustrated, already tipping, and now this, now _this._

“Guys, can we—” Tony starts.

“Yeah, yeah—”

“Of course—”

“We’ll be right outside, Tones, just tell us if you need anything.”

Peter cries quietly, trying not to get too loud, because he’s already embarrassed—he has no idea what kind of shit he did or said when all that was happening. 

He _hates._ He thought he was doing well. He really did. These words are buried, like his mistakes were, and he wonders how many more are festering there. How many more? How many?

He feels Tony and May situate themselves on either side of him, Tony wrapping his arm around Peter’s shoulders and May rubbing his arm up and down. 

“It’s so fucking unfair,” Peter says, sounding like a petulant child. “Goddamnit.”

“Honey, you have to give yourself a break,” May says. 

“I can’t,” Peter says, pressing his forehead hard to his arm. “I can’t, because then I’ll never get better. I’ll never be—who I am, who I _was_. I’ll never be Spider-Man again because all this shit is under the surface. I’ll never get it all if I give myself a break.”

“You’re gonna run yourself ragged if you don’t,” May says, softly. 

“I deserve it,” Peter says, looking up, wiping his eye. He hiccups, cracking his jaw. “I gotta—I gotta be run ragged because this is taking too long. This is like, so stupid, and I’m tired of it.”

“Pete,” Tony says, squeezing his shoulder. “What were we just talking about, huh? Recovery is not a straight line. It’s not. It’s annoying and awful and surprising and—life affirming, and shitty, everything you want it to be and everything you don’t. You’ll go off the beaten path a thousand times. But we’re here. We’re all here to guide you. And help you guide yourself.”

Peter shakes his head, blowing out a breath. 

May leans in, kissing him on the cheek. “In and out, Peter,” she says. “C’mon, relax.”

“We know the word,” Tony says. “Sam feels like shit because he was the one that said it.”

“He shouldn’t,” Peter says, trying to ground himself, take a good look at the workout room. Leia quickly scurries over when she sees him look at her, and his heart jolts at the idea that he could have scared his cat. She jumps into his lap and he sighs, running a hand down her back. 

“And you shouldn’t feel bad either,” May says. 

“You were just in here with three people whose recoveries are still ongoing, kid,” Tony says. “I lost an arm, Thor lost his whole fucking family _and_ his eye and went through a major depression, and Rhodey was shot out of the sky and almost never walked again. It’s been a while for all of us but we are still in this. There’s nothing wrong with that. We’re okay. And so are you.”

Peter sucks in a breath through his nose, trying to stop shaking. 

“Hey—You’re Peter Benjamin Parker. You’re Spider-Man. You’re strong, you’re capable, you’re safe and you are loved,” Tony says. “Don’t forget. Don’t forget that.”

“It’s all true, baby,” May says, leaning her head on his shoulder. “It’ll always be true.”

“Okay,” Peter says, eye straining with unshed tears. “Okay.”

~

Peter realizes he doesn’t want to go home. 

Part of him misses the apartment, but the idea of being separated from Tony feels like ice in his chest. He doesn’t know if that means there’s still something he needs to work on, and he knows he can’t handle being separated from May, either. All of this shit counts out college, or anything even slightly resembling being a normal person, and he tries not to get too lost in his embarrassment. He doesn’t know what’ll happen when the time comes for them to move back to the apartment, and he feels like begging May to find something closer to the tower. 

He feels safer here, despite the threat being eliminated. 

Eliminated. He did that.

He’s gotta remind himself all the time, even if he wants to forget. 

He pushes himself hard against the trigger words, all three of them, and once he finally passes out from fear MJ yells at him until he gives himself a break. Then she organizes a movie night, and Steve insists on cooking for everybody, which results in a meal that takes about six hours to make. But the wheat chili is one of the best things Peter’s ever eaten, and they get about an hour and a half into _Return of the King_ before Tony, Bucky and Happy are all asleep. Rhodey draws all over Tony’s face and Peter takes a bunch of selfies with him, and he watches as Ned and MJ _both_ silently recite Aragorn’s speech near the end of the movie. Leia eats chicken off the floor, and Sam talks about getting her another cat friend also built for therapy.

Peter’s happiest when they’re all together. 

“Tony,” Peter calls, walking down the hallway to the workshops. Last thing he knew he was down here, and they’ve been dancing around the idea of working on the Scarlet Spider together. Peter—despite the circumstances—really did love that suit. He knows it needs a new mask, thanks to his own mistake in tearing it up, and he hopes—he _hopes_—that he can convince Tony that working on it together won’t send him off the deep end. 

Definitely the opposite. He wants to do it.

He’s holding Leia as he walks, and he yawns, scratching her back. She purrs, and perches up higher on his shoulder, nudging into the side of his head. 

“Where’s Tony, huh, Leia?” Peter asks, leaning into her as she preens. “Where is he?”

The door to the third workshop is slightly ajar, and Peter turns towards it, opening it a little wider and peeking his head inside.

“Hey,” he says, tentatively looking around. There are a few projects laid out on the tables, and Friday is still active, doing some kind of search. Peter doesn’t see Tony in there, doesn’t hear him clanging around somewhere out of sight, and he’s just about to leave when he catches sight of something on a workstation next to the computer. 

He reaches up, adjusting his eye patch as he slips inside, putting Leia down at his feet. He feels half in a dream, head foggy and mouth dry, and he knows what he’s looking at. 

The synthetic eye sits on a small panel, schematics and plans sitting next to it, the computer running tests and listing statistics that go by too fast for Peter to read. The eye seems like it’s connected to the computer, and it’s the exact shade of brown of the eye Peter has left. The exact same as the one he lost.

There’s a photo taped to the desk, and it’s one Peter recognizes immediately. It’s of him, one that Tony took when they went to the Winter Village in Bryant Park. Peter is bundled up in the new coat Tony bought him, and he’s laughing because Tony made some dumb joke about ice skating. Peter is grinning in the photo, full of happiness—carefree, unaware of what’s waiting for him a few years down the road. This was before Thanos. Before all of it. 

On the bottom of the picture, in Tony’s handwriting, slanted black sharpie, it simply says _FOR HIM._

“Man,” Tony’s voice says, from behind him, knocking Peter out of his reverie. “I should really learn to shut doors all the way.”

Peter turns around, swallowing hard. Tony winces a little bit, leaning on the wall by the door. 

There are so many things going through Peter’s head. Sometimes he has trouble focusing, nowadays, and right now he can’t latch onto anything, the right thing to say, the right thing to feel, the right thing, period.

“Tony,” he says, his voice breaking. “This is—this is, uh—”

“You don’t have to say anything, kid, I don’t want to force you into anything,” Tony says, approaching him. “I just wanted to have it done as an option.”

The wave of emotion is warm and prickly, and for some reason, he finds something in his head he hasn’t been able to find before this moment. “I want it,” he says, chewing on his lower lip. “I do, I want—I want to be able to see again, so bad, the way I used to. But I—I—” He looks down at his feet, trying to find that strength they’ve been instilling in him. The strength that’s been there all along. “I want to try and—accept myself, first. Accept—who I am, right now. Before I take it.”

Peter’s worried Tony is gonna be offended, but when he looks up, Tony’s smiling. There are tears in his eyes. “Good,” Tony says, letting out a breathy laugh as he gets closer. “Good, Pete, God, you—you deserve to be accepted. By yourself most of all.”

Peter nods. “I—once I can live with it, day to day, I can—I can try to fix it.”

Tony pulls him into a hug, and Peter can feel Leia dancing back and forth by their feet. He settles against Tony’s shoulder and breathes, in and out, closing his eye. 

“It’ll be here when you’re ready,” Tony says. “I’m gonna calibrate it to all the suits, make it an easy transition, but in the meantime, we’ll work on the Scarlet Spider together. Make a new mask, have Friday compensate for your left side with some fisheye views, new alerts, shit like that. We’ll get it done, kid. You’ll be swinging again in no time.”

Peter sucks in a breath, holding onto him tighter. “Thank you for—for always fighting for me. Even when you don’t have to.”

Tony laughs, gripping the back of Peter’s neck. “I want to, bud,” he says. “I always will.”

Peter thinks about the day when he’s finally ready to take this monumental gift that Tony’s crafted for him. He can’t wait to see the pride on his face. 

He can’t wait to feel it in his own chest.

~

Peter stares at himself in the mirror. 

He’s not wearing the eye patch. His face is fuller now than it was in captivity, real meals made and selected with love as opposed to pure survival. His hair is tame, styled after a recent trim, and he’s not so pale anymore, maybe a little pink after yesterday’s balcony sunbathe with May and Morgan. The eye socket is clean, the eyelid repaired after a few long hours with Helen’s trusted colleague. 

He stares at himself. He doesn’t feel like a monster. He doesn’t get overwhelmed by the memories, though they’re still there in the back of his mind. Beck’s voice is something he can beat back now—he can be louder than him, and he knows that the asshole was wrong in everything he said in life and all the horrors he left behind in Peter’s mind after he was gone. Beck is under the water now. Trapped under a frozen lake, where Peter put him. Most of the time, he can barely hear him.

Peter nods at himself, in silent appreciation, a rare moment that he’s happy to achieve whenever it come his way. He grabs one of the new eye patches that Tony made, without the string, and easily fits it over where his left eye used to be. Usually he’s filled with a strange sense of regret when he puts a patch on, a sense of weighty tragedy, but he’s starting to fall into the normalcy of it, now. The aspect of hope on the horizon. He can see it. He knows it’s there.

His phone buzzes on the counter, and his heart jumps when Frank’s name flashes across the screen. It’s a text and a photo.

_Bought a nice looking shirt from a big SPIDEY fan in Queens_

And there’s a literal selfie. Of the Punisher. In an Iron Spider shirt. Peter stares, mouth open, and never in a million billion years is that something he ever expected to see. Or receive. 

Then another text comes through.

_We’ve all got your back, little Red_

He gets real emotional all the time lately. It’s hard not to. He quickly tries to formulate a response that doesn’t sound too stupid, but he hopes Frank will give him a pass if it does.

_Thanks. Hope I can have yours too someday soon!!_

He clicks send. He’s debating on whether two exclamation marks was too much when there’s an excited knock at the door. He doesn’t even jump, because he can already tell who it is by the way she’s knocking.

“Petey!” Morgan yells, banging on the door again. “Peter!”

Peter laughs to himself, and slips his phone into his pocket and pulls open the door. Morgan beams up at him and immediately grabs his hand.

“What happened, where’s the fire?” Peter asks, peering around the corner. 

“You gotta see this,” Morgan says. “Daddy and Mommy and May and MJ and Ned are already looking. And Uncle Steve and Uncle Sam are down there singing your song.”

Peter narrows his eye at her. “My song? Down where?”

“C’mon, c’mon, we’re looking through the big shiny window, we can see it real good but they can’t see us! Daddy told me to come get you!”

She tugs on his hand and starts pulling him down the hallway, and he’d be nervous if not for her excitement. Steve singing songs? He’s only heard Steve sing once, on that video on Bucky’s phone—the quality was bad and Steve laughed through most of _I Will Survive_. So Peter can’t imagine what the hell is going on here.

Morgan continues to lead him, past the kitchen and into the meeting room with the big window. Peter can hear the yelling and chanting as he walks inside, but it still doesn’t click for him yet. What it is.

Everyone Morgan named is standing shoulder to shoulder along the window, and Tony turns when he sees them coming, shifting a little so Peter can stand beside him and May. Morgan shoves herself past their legs, taking hold of her father’s hand. 

“I’ve got someone from the Spidey Squad down there taking pictures,” Ned says, as Peter approaches to figure out what they’re looking at. He glances at Tony first, and receives a warm, proud smile in return.

Peter looks through the window, and looks down.

The chanting stops being a garbled blast of noise, and turns into what they’re really saying. They’re chanting _SPIDER-MAN_. A whole, massive crowd of people, gathered around the base of the tower and spilling out into the streets, enough so that traffic is held up and being redirected by police officers. The people have signs and a group near the corner is making up Spidey’s face with about twenty different painted cardboard pieces. People are dancing, singing, celebrating, so many of them wearing Spider-Man costumes. There are hundreds and hundreds of them, and Peter can see more coming from here. Little groups, big groups, a stray person alone here and there, trudging towards the tower to join the masses. The masses, cheering for him. So many of them holding signs with beautiful artwork and words of encouragement. One that he zeroes in on says _SPIDER-MAN SAVED ME FROM DROWNING LAST MAY—LOVE HIM FOREVER._

Peter stares. It feels like something his younger self would have concocted in his wildest dreams, when he’d put on his Iron Man mask and rush around the apartment pretending to save people. He’d say _no, no, miss, no, you don’t need to thank me_ but he’d blush and preen under the imagined appreciation. 

_Look at my kid_ Ben would say. _Out there saving the world._

Peter wonders what he would think, now. Now that the people are real and they’re here and he never did it for this, doesn’t do it for the press or the love, but they’re giving it to him anyway. 

“They’ve been out there for almost an hour,” May says, hand over her heart. 

“Steve and Sam are singing a song that the crowd came up with,” Pepper says, peering around the back of Tony’s head. “Something about Amazing Spider-Man. It’s adorable.”

Peter lets out a wavering breath. “Is Happy the guy from the Spidey Squad, Ned?” he asks, catching sight of Happy down there, waving his arms like a maestro. 

“Um, yes,” Ned says. “Flash is also down there. He’s livestreaming the whole thing. He’s been crying.”

Peter scoffs, his heart swelling three sizes. “Why’d they, uh. Why’d they come today?”

“No idea,” Tony says. “But I did some digging and it seems like they’re doing a week long Spidey appreciation deal, so—they’ll be back tomorrow, too. Security’s on it, but it—it seems pretty—seems pretty safe. Just a swell of support. The kinda thing we wanna see.”

Peter stares, watching as they celebrate, and he hears the song, hears them all singing it at the same time. More and more people keep coming. 

He can’t believe it. He just can’t believe it. He’s trembling with how shocked he is.

MJ comes up behind him, running her hands over his shoulders. He turns around, shaking his head, looking at her incredulously. She snorts at him, cupping his face and running her thumb back and forth across his cheekbone. “Why are you always so surprised?” she asks. “I thought the bridge would have driven things home for you.”

“I don’t know, I mean, this is—look at how many people are out there, MJ—” He interrupts himself by glancing behind him and looking out the window again. They’re winding around the tower. They’re not just staying in this one spot, they’re moving around the whole tower because they don’t know where he’ll be, where he can see them best.

“They love you,” MJ says, her hand sliding down his neck. “Get it through your cute head.”

She laughs, and leans in, kissing him on the cheek. She moves over to stand next to May, picking Morgan up into her arms on her way over. 

Peter wants—he wants to give them something. He doesn’t think he has the strength to go down there, not quite yet, but he wants—to do something.

“Tony,” Peter says, taking Tony’s elbow. 

Tony looks at him immediately, brows furrowed in concern. “You alright?” he asks, in a hush.

“Yeah,” Peter says, his voice breaking with emotion. “Do you, uh—do you have any complete suits that are—close to my original suit?”

Tony regards him for a moment, and Peter can tell he’s putting the idea together. “Think so,” he says. He nods towards the door. “C’mon.”

~

“_Hello Peter_,” Karen’s voice says. 

Peter jolts as the heads up display comes to life. She seems to scan him, and moves all of his commands to his right side. Tony hadn’t gotten to install an AI in the Scarlet Spider before Peter took it, and Friday only had access to what he was doing until he left the tower. He barely remembers all of that, he was so worked up. But it’s so, so good to hear Karen’s voice, AI or not.

“Hi, Karen,” Peter says, a little too excited. 

Tony stands in front of him, his hands on his hips. “Yeah, she’s the first thing I put in this one—made it a few days after I snuck the original suit back into your apartment.”

Peter laughs, rubbing his hands together. Feels like another life.

“South balcony on the fifteenth floor?” Tony asks, raising his eyebrows.

Peter nods, a little manic. 

“You good in there, bud?” Tony asks, tilting his head. “They’re gonna totally freak out—you okay with that?”

“Very okay,” Peter says, fast. “Really very okay.”

Tony looks at him for a long moment, like he’s sizing him up, trying to get into his head. Trying to stop himself from worrying. 

Peter gets all that. Especially coming from Tony. But he feels ready, for this. He wants to see them. He wants them to see him.

He walks up alongside Tony, nudging him with his shoulder. “C’mon,” he says, grinning, even though Tony can’t see his face. “Let’s go.”

He moves with a pep in his step, he hums in the elevator, but his nerves come back when they get to the floor and head for the big balcony. He can hear the crowd chanting and celebrating when he approaches, and the others have relocated, and are standing just inside, waiting for him. They line the path to the balcony, and Peter walks through them like a soldier receiving honors, back from battle and ready to show the world that he made it. That he’s still alive. 

The warmth in their gazes is all over him—the people he loves most, standing in stalwart appreciation, approving of his choices and the direction he’s heading in.

Today’s affirmation was simple. _I trust myself._ He felt doubt. In his decisions, in his abilities, especially after all he endured when he was so sure he could elude the exact kind of situation he was stuck in. But now he’s building towards something bigger, and finding a deeper kind of strength than he ever had before. The strength to forgive himself. To fight again. To find new trust in his own hands, where he thought it was lost to him forever. 

They still love him, despite it all. And the people do too. Beck is gone, he can’t hurt him again. And despite the ever present darkness clinging to his left side, the world is shifting so he can see again. Positive reassurances and reinforcements building up the dark part of his vision like the stars appearing in the sky, after a day full of smoke and dust and uncertainty. It’s all bright when he builds it himself. Peter finds that when he learns, he adapts. 

Not a straight path, but a winding road. And he’s got company.

_I’m Peter Benjamin Parker. I’m Spider-Man. I’m strong, I’m capable, I’m safe and I am loved._

“You ready, Pete?” Tony asks, the two of them inches from the balcony threshold. 

Peter can hear them calling his name. _SPIDER-MAN. SPIDER-MAN. SPIDER-MAN. _

He nods, trusting himself. Trusting that love he feels all around him. Trusting that he deserves it. “Yeah,” he says, looking at Tony. “I’m ready.” 

Tony slides the door open and Peter takes those final steps, heading out to face them. 

They see him immediately. The cheering is deafening, the crowd jumping up and down, waving their signs, and Peter knows he’s never felt like this. 

He’s safe. He’s happy. He’s home.

He’s Spider-Man.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stay tuned for the epilogue, coming soon <3


	10. epilogue - S.P.I.D.E.Y

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Forgive me for any mistakes, I got the chapter done on the train and read by my editor and I wanted to get it out to you early for being so considerate towards me and this story. I’ll go over it again when I get home this Tuesday, hopefully I don’t find anything TOO major. I’ve loved the journey and I feel immense pride for these ten chapters and how much people have loved them.
> 
> Thank you from the bottom of my heart.
> 
> (Trigger warnings for a child in danger)

Peter hovers over Tony’s sleeping form, clutching his own phone in his hand. He clicks his tongue, and paces back and forth next to the couch. He glances down at the S.P.I.D.E.Y app he still has open and sees the private alert. He clicks his tongue again, and kneels down, trying not to shake Tony too hard when he wakes him up.

“Tony,” Peter whispers. “Hey. Wake up.”

Tony grunts, but doesn’t open his eyes just yet. His brows furrow and he twists a little bit onto his side.

Peter latches onto his shoulder and shakes him harder. “Tony!” he whisper-yells, glancing over his shoulder.

“Shit,” Tony grumbles, startling awake and pushing himself up. He glances at Peter and recognition dawns in his eyes, and he clears his throat, blinking. “You okay? You alright?”

“Yeah,” Peter whispers, though he isn’t exactly sure. 

“What time is it?”

“Six,” Peter says. “You were napping. You nap more when Pepper’s not here.”

“She says I loaf,” Tony says, voice rough as he pushes himself up more so he’s leaning against the arm of the couch. “So when she’s gone I loaf more. She can’t see me.”

Peter smiles a little bit, even though his nerves are on high right now. He sighs and sits on the ground against the couch, reaching up and rubbing at his left eye. He’s only been wearing the synthetic for about a week, and he still isn’t completely used to it. “Morgan’s, uh, with Happy. She’s making him do math class.”

Tony snorts. Then he reaches over and ruffles Peter’s hair. “What’s wrong?” he asks. “You sure you’re alright?”

Peter chews on his lower lip and looks down at his phone. The app is still up. “Uh, we got a ping on that missing boy. Someone found his jacket in the Lower East Side, it went to the—the, uh headquarters we have there and it was confirmed to be his.”

Tony hums. “Was a drone deployed?” he asks.

“Yeah,” Peter says. “I got the private alert for it and I’m watching, but I, uh. I wanna go out. And look myself. And I was wondering if you’d...if you’d go with me.” His heart is beating wildly, and he’s trying to keep himself still. He’s half vibrating in anticipation and panic and the need to _do something_. Anything. “There aren’t any sightings or straight confirms but I—I—”

He turns around, looks at Tony. He hopes his left eye is conveying as much emotion as his right—it should, considering how damn high tech it is. “It’s been three days,” Peter says. “It’s getting to be—too long. We need to find him. I trust the cops, I guess, but I…”

“It’s hitting you hard,” Tony says, tilting his head. 

It’s been eight months. Eight months, since the Spidey appreciation week. Eight months, since Peter took those steps out onto that balcony and promised himself he’d get his life back on track. 

He’d been making a lot of promises to himself, so had everyone else, so he didn’t know how much faith he should have. Things felt so up in the air, still so outrageous and unreal and impossible—but the people were chanting his name. They were calling for him. 

He had to get better for them. For them, and for everyone who’d been fighting for him all along. May, Tony, MJ, Ned—all of them. Everyone who considered him worth their time, despite how broken he was. 

So he tried. Harder than he’d tried before. It took him a month, but he got over the word ‘wooden’ first, after numerous setbacks and a concussion from throwing himself too hard back against the wall. Shuri created some projects in New York so she’d be able to visit him, and with her help, he was able to get through ‘reassess’ next, after another month. He’s still working on ‘ambush’, the hardest of all three. That one, Beck nailed it in, worked on it the most. But Peter knows it now, knows the shape of the word and the sound of its syllables, can picture it in his mind’s eye. But when it meets the air, it still has him. Peter tries to overcome it, but his own fear of hurting everyone else stops him in his tracks almost every time. The three times he did get triggered, he broke Sam’s wrist, two of Steve’s fingers, and he gave Tony a concussion. He hates that last incident, in particular, because Tony is always the one who can pull him out. He hates hurting any of them, but Tony—feels especially wrong.

So he’s still working on it. It’s still on the list. The list is long, real and tacked to his wall, and it’s also in his head, something he whispers to himself and goes over and over because he’s memorized it, just like he’s memorized the mantra Tony made up for him. The list and the mantra go hand in hand, sometimes. Who he is, and what he needs to do.

He went back to school with an eye patch on, Ned and MJ situated at his sides like they were ready to kill anyone who even looked at him wrong. He went with less is more when it came to his story—an innocuous accident when he got back to New York, something he didn’t want to talk about, and with clear, good reason. Most people didn’t question him, most were sorry, worried, and even Flash didn’t have anything bad to say. Peter felt lucky, for all that. 

School felt—strange, at first. Being away from Tony and May was nearly debilitating, in the beginning, to the point where he had to stare at a picture of the three of them together to bring him back to normal. But, thankfully, either MJ, Ned or both of them were in each of his classes. And they kept him afloat.

It took a few weeks, more than a few absences, but he was eventually able to get back into the swing of a routine. He started answering questions, doing his work ahead of time. Taking extra credit. Going back to the decathlon.

Trying to be himself again.

He trained, too. He put on the suits that he and Tony worked on together, went into some of the larger gyms on the lower levels, and practiced swinging around. He made more webbing than he knew what to do with, and the Avengers teamed up again to help Spider-Man get back on his feet. Back into the air. They ran simulations of old battles that Tony cropped up, of fights Peter described with random street criminals and guys like the Vulture and Rhino. No one let him hurt himself, obviously, but they let him go through all of it, every punch and dodge and swing, and they stood behind him, backed him up. He’s only been in a few Avenger-level battles, and they all ended badly, so it was nice—to train with them as a team. It made him feel better than he is, more important—the kind of person who’s able to achieve the dreams that were born in his childhood.

But there was still sadness. Still times when his experience with Beck would grip him, choke him, bury him under the weight of it again. But Tony and Pepper came in during one of his episodes, and sat down, pulling up a livestream on one of Friday’s servers. 

They were demolishing the warehouse. 

Peter moved from his wallowing to watch it happen, to watch it cascade to the ground like it had never been there in the first place. It felt like something left him in that moment, like a breath he’d been holding for far too long. Like his pain had finally been released, set free, and the part of him that was still trapped there returned to him. Returned, to heal with him, to help him heal. 

No more ghosts.

There was nothing left. All of it was gone. And Peter cried harder than he did when they were back there, in that hellhole, and May came in and the three of them held him. Told him it was okay.

_He’s gone_, Tony had whispered, squeezing his shoulder. _It’s all gone. It’ll never, ever happen again._

That dragged him back out, again. Back into the light. And he tried to refocus in a world where Beck had been completely erased. Peter didn’t let him come back, though Beck did try—howling in the walls, screaming into his ear at night and startling him awake. 

Peter talked back to him. Tried to stay calm and collected.

_You don’t belong here._

_Get out._

_You’re not real._

_You’re dead. You’re dead._

_You can’t hurt me anymore._

Peter didn’t allow him to win. He didn’t allow him that final wish, that final stab. Peter forced him to _go._

He just hopes he’ll stay away. He doesn’t know how long it’ll take, to erase the shadow of him. But he tries. He keeps trying. He still is. 

Peter and May, after some agonizing decision making, took Leia and left the tower, but moved into a new apartment that Tony paid for, and it was only six blocks away. They went back nearly every weekend to stay, and Tony brought Pepper and Morgan over for dinner every Wednesday. In fact, a bunch of them came over to visit. MJ and Ned all the time, of course. Sam, more than Peter expected. Steve and Bucky together. Natasha, who May had tea with, which felt weird. But it was even weirder when Frank came, and May made them rump roast for dinner. Peter watched reruns of Maury and ate rump roast with his aunt and the Punisher.

Tony laughed for what felt like hours when Peter told him.

Peter started making more appearance as Spider-Man. A lot of special ones at Christmas time, at soup kitchens and orphanages and homeless shelters, always with Tony by his side. Part of him was wary of the open world, but he knew Tony would keep him safe. But Peter soon realized that everyone he interacted with loved Spider-Man, only wished him the best, and found inspiration in him, despite what he’d been through. Peter didn’t get it, but it filled him with warmth, and his own inspiration to continue along the path he was on, even when he doubted it.

And after almost eight months of wrestling with his list, with his affirmations and the face in the mirror, he decided to take the eye from Tony. When he was finally able to call himself normal, move around day to day without breaking down about the changes he’s gone through, go weeks without focusing on what he was missing, he felt like he was ready to take the gift that he knew had been waiting for him. 

It didn’t feel like fixing himself. He no longer felt broken. 

May, Tony, MJ, Ned and Matt were there when Helen put the eye in, and once the process was complete, the world—shifted. 

He saw them all again. Saw them, with two eyes. 

The room—it lit up. Like what he thought heaven might look like.

He couldn’t breathe.

All his emotions caught in his throat.

Maybe he passed out. Maybe he doesn’t like that part of the story.

Maybe it was one of the most fucking emotional moments of his life. The eye produced tears, and for some reason that was the thing that made him cry _more. _

He could see again. Completely. Two eyes, not one. Both.

Tony did that for him. He did that. Peter knew, he had known, but actually having it—using it—_having an eye again—_

He apologized about a hundred times for crying in front of Matt. But he had never seen Matt smile like that, and Peter could see it. With two eyes.

They all hugged him, for what felt like forever, and when the emotions finally calmed down and they were moving to leave the med bay, Peter caught Tony and hugged him like he’d never hugged him before. 

_Thank you_ he’d whispered, shaking with emotion. _Thank you, thank you, thank you._

He felt the kind of happiness Beck told him he’d never have again.

Before, during, and after all that, the foundations were laid for the coalition Peter came up with. He helped Tony work on it, all the coding, the way things would run. He watched over Tony’s shoulder as he made plans, went with him when he’d choose buildings. Once it was done, ready, it felt like sunshine and oxygen all around him, knowing that they’d be able to help in ways they weren’t able to before. Knowing they’d be able to help people who’d gone through what he did.

As always, Tony had gone above and beyond.

It was a whole grid system, starting in New York with plans to expand to the rest of the United States and eventually the rest of the world. The S.P.I.D.E.Y system, which stood for Society for the Protection and Identification of Disappeared and Endangered Youth, works hand in hand with Amber Alert, and receives reports of missing kids and teenagers. It allows citizens to drop pins in suspicious areas and report unusual activity. Those reports go to the people that Tony vetted and hired, working in one of two headquarters in each borough, and the dropped pins deployed E.D.I.T.H drones to follow through and map out the general location, searching out clues and threats. They weren’t armed anymore, just reconnaissance, the exact opposite of what Beck wanted to use them for. Friday worked hand in hand with the app, drones and the CCTV cameras around the city, and if a tip was deemed trustworthy, it was sent to the NYPD and to the masked heroes who opted in, including and especially the Avengers. Which included Spider-Man.

It was hard to feed through the bullshit, in the beginning, but once Bruce and Tony got all the filters in place, it started working like a charm. With Tony’s technology and resources, they’ve been able to locate every missing youth that’s been reported to the program since it started. The Avengers haven’t needed to be involved yet, but every report itches under Peter’s skin, and he’s kept a close eye on how the investigations have played out. Thankfully, everything so far has been family problems, runaways, lost but not taken. Things they can deal with.

He doesn’t know if Tony thinks he’s too close to all this, too emotional about it. He doesn’t know if Tony is keeping him away on purpose.

But this kid has been gone for three days.

His name is Logan Faraday and he’s six years old. His report got entered into their system as soon as his mother contacted the police, and Peter’s been keeping a close eye on it. Because usually they find them pretty fast, and there were plenty of good explanations for where Logan could have gone. His uncle and cousin live right down the street, maybe he was heading there. His best friend lived next door, maybe the two of them went down to the park where they met. He was young, but he was mischievous, his mother said. He’d run away before and come back just as fast. She was trying to break him of it, teach him about how dangerous things were. 

But this time, he didn’t come back.

It’s been three days.

Peter thinks about the three day mark, for him. He’d already given up on pleading to Beck’s better nature, because he realized there wasn’t any such thing. Beck had already broken his wrist on the second day, and dropped him into at least nine separate illusions. He’d already started to work on what would turn out to be the trigger words. On the third day he broke Peter’s nose, and slammed his head against the wall until his ears were bleeding. 

Beck had his own reasons for doing what he did. To hurt Tony, to humiliate and depower Peter. 

But other evil people have their own reasons, too.

“Yeah,” Peter says, lower lip trembling as he looks at Tony. “Yeah, it’s—it’s hitting me hard.”

Tony looks at him, like he’s thinking it all over. “They found his jacket?” he asks.

Peter nods. 

“Did headquarters test it for any DNA other than him?”

“I don’t know,” Peter says, very aware of his own heartbeat. “I mean. They should be, but I haven’t gotten a message yet and I don’t think anybody else has either.” He cracks his jaw, and he knows he doesn’t need permission to go looking. He’s been on a few patrols on his own in the past couple weeks, since the first one at the beginning of the month. Yeah, he knew Tony was looming somewhere close by, that everyone was on high alert just in case something crazy happened. Steve and Bucky had practically made Coffee Project their new home base for when Peter was swinging through Manhattan. But for all intents and purposes, he was Spider-Man again. Out there doing his thing. 

But he wants Tony with him, on this. Within eyesight. He can’t really pinpoint why—probably because he feels like glass. Like if he finds the wrong thing, he might break. He could break if he finds the right thing, too. No matter how this ends, he feels connected to it. 

The kid is Morgan’s age. Peter has a picture in the app, that Logan’s mother provided. He’s got dark hair that falls in soft curls over his forehead. Big ears and big eyes that scrunch up when he smiles, which he is in the photo. He looks full of life and happiness and that’s all Peter ever wants him to be.

He needs Tony to be there. To help him help Logan.

Tony shifts, planting both feet on the ground. He holds out the iron hand to Peter, and Peter takes it, Tony pulling him up along with him. He pats Peter on the back, and nods at him. “Let May know where we’re going, I’m gonna check in with Happy, and then I’ll meet you on the roof, alright, bud?”

Peter gets a little choked up, and he nods, smiling. 

~

Peter swings towards the headquarters in the Lower East Side, with Tony flying above him. Despite the reason why they’re out, Peter feels a deep sense of calm when it comes to seeing Iron Man in the sky, especially while he’s out on his own recognizance, flipping through the air in Tony’s wake.

When they’re about ten minutes away, an alert from headquarters flashes on Peter’s screen.

_DNA OF 48 YR OLD MALE UNRELATED/UNASSOCIATED WITH FARADAY FOUND ON JACKET, THREAT RAISED_

Peter nearly misses the side of the building he’s aiming for with his next web, and he swallows hard, chills running through him. The eye is so high tech that sometimes he feels like he’s looking through two computer screens when he’s in the suit. His web catches and he glances up at Tony.

“Did you get that?” Peter asks, voice wavering. “Did you see what they said?”

“_I saw it,_” Tony says. “_Gimme a second, Spidey, I’m talking to the cops, we’re getting some locations._”

A name comes up on Peter’s display, and once again he nearly careens into the side of an apartment building, and then a face to match the name. The man whose DNA was on Logan’s jacket.

Randall Calhoun. He has dead-looking eyes, and the photo they have is a mugshot. Peter feels sick, and the rap sheet comes up—breaking and entering, on three separate occasions. That’s it.

Peter swallows hard, and speeds up a little bit.

“Karen,” Peter says. “Has the drone found anything yet?”

“_Not yet, Peter, but it’s still active._” 

“Can you deploy another one and have it search for the guy that headquarters just sent me? Using facial recognition and rolling back from where the jacket was found using the CCTV cameras?”

“_Executing command_,” Karen says. “_Captain Rogers and Colonel Rhodes are at the ready if necessary._”

“Thank you,” Peter says, turning left when he sees Tony do it. He can hardly think, barely knows where the hell they’re going, and he’s afraid. Afraid, because he’s starting to hear the voices again. All the versions of Beck that Peter locked away.

“_Pete, change of plans, did you get the—_”

“Yeah,” Peter says, mouth dry. The picture is still hovering in the corner of his screen, and he sees the drone deploying, and Karen linking up with Friday to start the facial recognition command. “I, uh, deployed another drone to do a reverse time search by facial recognition, starting where the jacket was found,” he says. 

“_Good, smart—_”

“The family definitely doesn’t know this guy, right?” Peter says. His voice breaks stupidly.

“_No_,” Tony says, carefully. “_Confirmed that they don’t_.”

Peter groans without meaning to, and continues to follow him. “Where are we going, instead?” he asks.

“_You okay?_” Tony asks, and Peter can see him glancing back at him.

He’s not. He’s not okay. But he knows if he admits that, Tony will make him go home. And he can’t sit on the sidelines. He’s gotta find this kid. Tonight. He’s gotta find him tonight.

“I’m okay,” Peter lies. “Where are we going?”

“_We’re gonna swing by Calhoun’s last known location, cops are going by his place. Keep an eye on the drone you sent out, and the other one too. We can change our route fast if they give us anything._”

Peter tries to stay focused. He can hear whispers. He doesn’t tune in, doesn’t allow it, and he focuses on Iron Man. 

“_Okay, bud?_” Tony asks, softly.

Peter realizes he’s didn’t answer. “Yeah,” he says. Tony sends over the map, a red line lighting up how they’re gonna get to a bar named Tracks on 31st street. He shoots another web, watching as Karen silently starts monitoring his heart rate on the screen. “Yeah, let’s go.”

~

The bar is dark inside, but every single person turns when they walk in. Peter’s been able to light up even the most hardened faces lately, and a few of the men at the bar smile when they see Spider-Man joining them.

“Hey!” the bartender calls, pouring a drink for one of the guys in front of him. “We’ve already got one of you guys in here right now. Four or more and I’ve gotta charge a party rate.”

“Huh?” Peter says, like an idiot.

“Listen, we’re not associated with every costumed hero,” Tony says, as his nanotech trails back into the housing unit. “Mr. Bean or whatever his name is, the guy that hangs out in Times Square, we’ve got beef with him. We do not put our name to his.”

“What about mine?” a voice asks, from near the back of the bar.

Peter watches as Matt literally steps out of the shadows next to a jukebox, in full Daredevil garb, and it’s just about the most cinematic thing Peter’s ever seen in real life, and he’s seen a lot of shit. It takes all his strength not to call out _MATT_ as they approach him, and it’s almost like Tony knows, because he talks first.

“Hey, Mr. Devil,” Tony says. “You got the same alerts we did?”

“I did,” Matt says, and he turns towards Peter. “I knew this one would hit close to home, and I wanted to come out and help you. I hope that’s alright.”

Tears prick at Peter’s eyes again. “Thank you,” he says, unable to say anything else.

“Get any info here?” Tony asks, hands on his hips.

“He was here, last night,” Matt says, voice low. “Same bartender, and they have cameras. He didn’t have the child with him, though. He was alone, drinking.”

Peter swallows hard. “Maybe he’s just—some random guy that touched the jacket.”

“We’re still waiting on the camera feed before it was dropped,” Tony says.

“From what your headquarters reported, only this man and Logan had traces of DNA on the jacket,” Matt says. “It’s enough to track him down, get some answers.” He nods at Peter, like he’s trying to reassure him that their one lead is still viable.

Peter doesn’t know what he wants. He’d much rather Logan hadn’t been taken by anyone, that he made a mistake and was trying to head home. But if this guy is part of this—they have to find him and make him talk.

“Alright,” Tony says, with a sigh. “Let’s head to the Lower East Headquarters, see the results for ourselves, and wait for what the cops have to say.”

It isn’t enough for Peter’s blood—he knows there’s nowhere to go right now, but part of him just wants to swing around the city aimlessly, watching and searching. He wants to be moving.

“Uh, am I gonna carry you, Daredevil, or are you gonna parkour the whole way—”

Tony’s quip gets cut off, because all three of them get the same alert at the same time. Peter can hear it going off in Matt’s ears, the video being described by some automated voice. 

Peter sees it.

Information from both drones, working together simultaneously. The original one they sent out mapped the area, and the one Peter deployed followed that map and the corresponding CCTV cameras and found their man. 

And he had Logan with him.

Peter sees it.

The man, dragging the kid along. Logan drops his jacket on purpose, and the man doesn’t notice. He takes him into his arms then, and Logan cries and yells and he’s passed off as another fussy child by everyone around him.

Peter feels sick, and Tony puts a hand on his shoulder, like he knows.

But the drone footage pulls up each camera along the mapped route, and highlights the ones where it recognized Calhoun’s face. It makes Peter feel like he’s everywhere, like some of the shit Beck used to pull—_THEY’RE GONNA FUCKING HATE THIS, PETE, THEY’RE NOT GONNA KNOW WHICH ONE’S ME AND WHICH ONE ISN’T_— finally, he sees them slip into what looks like a meat shop. From the time stamp, it was moments ago, and just a few blocks from here. They get a couple angles, and the place looked empty when they moved inside. Peter wonders if that was a coincidence, or if the meat guys are in on it.

“They’re telling me—there is a connection, but only to the mother,” Tony says. “She didn’t realize at first.”

“I heard that too,” Matt says. 

Peter doesn’t know why he didn’t hear it. Maybe because the images are making him feel ill, reminding him intensely of the moment when he woke up in the warehouse and had no idea how he got there, no idea when he’d be out again. _Maybe never. Maybe never. _

“An old coworker, years ago, she didn’t recognize him because he’s lost weight—Spidey, you good?” Tony asks, even though he knows.

“Can we take point, please?” Peter asks, not knowing what the answer is gonna be, not knowing what the cops want. He wants to go, with Tony and Matt. He wants to go now. His feet start moving before he makes the active choice, and he swallows hard, hearing them follow.

Tony asks something, not to him, and Matt comes up on his left side. Peter still isn’t used to being able to see out of his left eye, and he startles a little bit before he looks at him.

“We’re gonna make it,” Matt says. “I promise you.”

Peter nods, shaky, and he still isn’t sure how much Matt can see of him, especially with the mask, so he confirms. “I know,” he says. Because they have to.

“They’re letting us go in first because we’re closer and it’s our tech,” Tony says. “Uh, Red—I see why our buddy calls you that—same question as before, it’s still far enough that I don’t want you running behind us—”

“You got me, Spidey?” Matt asks, as they step out into the road again, the sounds of Tony suiting back up meeting Peter’s ears.

“Yeah,” Peter says, glancing at him. “I’ve got you.”

~

Peter holds onto Matt as he swings over, following Tony, too focused on the task at hand to freak out at all about two of his idols essentially supporting him in his mission. Because it is his mission, it’s his, it feels more important than anything he’s ever done even though he’s fought titans in space and faced death and come back without a second thought.

He’s afraid he’s not up to it. Afraid, after everything, that he doesn’t know how to do this, doesn’t know how to be the person that Logan needs to save him. 

What if they’re too late? What if they’re too late?

When they reach the meat market Peter nearly tumbles to a stop, terrified and panicky, the only thing keeping him from crashing being getting Matt to the ground safely. Tony lands hard and intimidating behind him, and they move inside the shop without pretense, the sirens still blaring in the distance. Getting closer.

Peter’s hearing goes sharp, like he’s in a tunnel, and he can’t hear any of the yelps of distress the two customers make, can’t hear any of the yelling from the men behind the counter. He looks around, feeling like he’s in quicksand under the water, and he vaguely hears Tony and Matt barking commands. 

Matt marches into the back room, while Tony stays close to Peter. Peter sways, standing there useless, and he watches the way the men behind the counter move back and forth. There are three of them, and two of them step wildly, hands flailing, but one of them stands still. Rooted to the spot.

Something clicks in Peter’s head.

He walks around the counter, swiftly, and glances down where the guy is standing. There’s a small rug there, and Peter pushes him back like a rag doll and knocks it aside—revealing a trap door. 

He glances up at Tony as Tony retracts the helmet, revealing his face, his brows furrowed. 

Peter looks back down at the door, and at the man who was hiding it. He feels a surge of anger but he doesn’t follow that, doesn’t let it drive him—he thinks of the kid, the kid that was smart enough to leave his jacket behind on the street. Hoping someone would figure it out, hoping someone would help. 

The man in front of Peter makes no moves, and almost looks emotionless.

Tony immediately pulls out extra weapons, holding each man at gunpoint while Peter bends down, yanking the locked door off its hinges. He can’t hear much, all of it still rushing waters and his own heart taking hold of him, but he does hear Tony’s panicked voice—_on Spidey, Red, get on Spidey’s six, now, now, behind the counter_—and Peter starts down.

Karen deploys his spider drone, the one Tony gave him, and then the hidden room is filled with light.

Peter jumps off the ladder and hits hard wood floor, spinning around in a panic. It smells like rot, smells like the place he knew all too well, and he’s too off his game for all this, but he can’t be, he _can’t be— _

Everything happens fast.

He hears the gun go off, he feels the bullet graze his arm, and then he sees the man in the corner—no kid, not yet, but the man from the photo, Calhoun, pointing a gun right at him. Peter shoots two webs at him before he can make another move, and he knocks the gun out of his hands, sticking it to the wall. The man stumbles back with the impact of the web, and Peter is about to launch himself forward when a red and black blur does it first.

Matt.

He sweeps the guy’s legs out from under him, punching him hard in the throat. Tony’s voice is frantic, up above.

“Kid? Spidey? Hey, hey!” The building nearly shakes with his oncoming footsteps.

“I’m okay!” Peter yells, knowing, after what they’ve been through, that he has to reassure him. 

And that’s when Peter hears it. 

“Spider—Spider-Man?”

Everything narrows down to the path of light droney is laying out behind him, and Peter turns, his movements liquid, and sees him.

Logan.

He’s in the back corner, behind two rusting sets of shelves, his knees drawn up to his chest. His eyes are wide and there’s a bruise on his forehead that Peter couldn’t see in the video.

Peter’s breath catches, and he rushes over, the world filling up again with all the other sounds he’d been tuning out. Matt, beating this guy senseless. Tony, up above, still yelling orders. The police arriving. Logan breathing.

Logan breathing, Logan breathing. He’s alive. 

Peter kneels in front of him. “Hey, hey, buddy—your name’s Logan, right?”

“Yes! Did you find my jacket?” Logan asks, reaching out and grabbing Peter’s hand.

“Someone did,” Peter says, nodding, his thumb brushing back and forth over Logan’s knuckles. “And that was so smart, kid, to drop it—”

“I was crying but no one was listening,” Logan says, his lower lip trembling. 

That—Peter gets a flash of his first escape, Beck dragging him back, and he was screaming, he was even screaming _help_ but no one stopped. No one even tried. And then Beck hanged him. Hanged him until he nearly blacked out.

No one listened then. And no one listened this time either. To a _kid_. A child.

“I’ve got you,” Peter says, voice breaking. “Okay? I heard you. I heard you.”

“You did?” Logan asks, perking up a little bit. 

“Yep,” Peter says, nodding fast. “C’mere, it’s okay. I’m gonna take you back to your mom. She’s waiting for you, Logan, it’s alright.”

Logan scrambles forward and wraps his arms around Peter’s neck. Peter holds him tight, squeezing his eyes shut, and for a moment he’s just hugging him, drowning in pure relief. 

“He didn’t hurt you, right?” Peter asks, cradling the back of the kid’s head. “Right? He didn’t hurt you?”

“He bumped my head,” Logan says. “And he was—he was mean, I told him mommy said don’t go with strangers but he was mean anyway—”

“But that’s it?” Peter says, trying not to freak out. “That’s it?”

“Yes,” Logan says.

“Spider-Man,” Matt’s voice says. 

Peter glances over his shoulder, twisting a little bit, and he sees Matt standing over the kidnapper. Peter knows Matt doesn’t kill, but this guy—doesn’t look good. It looks like something Frank might do. 

“Take him up,” Matt says, nodding. 

Peter hears the police clamoring and getting closer, taking over the meat market above them. “Okay,” he says. He rubs Logan’s back a little bit, like he does with Morgan when she’s upset. “I’m gonna get you out of here, okay, buddy?” Peter asks, not focusing on his own heart or how his legs feel like they’re gonna collapse out from under him. 

He holds Logan securely and straightens back up.

“Spider-Man, you’re bleeding,” Logan says, tentatively. 

Peter narrows his eyes, and connects the scuffle from a moment before to the weird pain in his arm that he’s suddenly aware of, now that the kid mentions it.

“It’s fine,” he says, sure that it is, probably, fine, and not nearly as important as getting this kid out of this fucking cellar. “Hey, guess what? Iron Man’s up there.”

“I love Iron Man,” Logan says, fast, still looking down at Peter’s arm.

“Me too,” Peter says.

Logan hugs him then, with a sigh too weighty for a kid his age, laying his head on Peter’s shoulder. Droney stays down with Matt, and Peter situates himself above the opening, shooting a web at the ceiling and pulling himself up.

A bunch of emotions flicker across Tony’s face when he sees him, and he finally settles on concern when his eyes find the blood. There are about ten cops shoved inside the smallness of this place, and all three employees are outside on the ground with their hands cuffed. Peter doesn’t know whether they were genuinely involved or not, but right now it doesn’t matter.

“Spidey,” Tony says, clearly eager to use Peter’s real name instead. “I wish you would have worn the iron spider, dammit, you’re not _okay_, you got _shot—”_

“Grazed,” Peter says, walking out from behind the counter and to Tony’s side. He looks over his shoulder and sees two policemen going down to meet Matt, which lets out some of the fear from his chest. “Look, Tony, you’ve got two people who love Iron Man here, me and Logan.”

That makes Tony’s face change, and Logan lifts his head up again, smiling shyly at Tony from Peter’s arms.

“Hey, little man,” Tony says. “We’re so glad we found you.”

“I’m so glad you found me too,” Logan says. 

Peter holds him tighter.

~

The police take him a few minutes later, and Peter almost loses it until he sees the mother racing down the road, nearly taking out a fire hydrant. She half-parks, almost hitting one of the cop cars too, but then she stumbles out of the car and runs—runs—to her little boy, gathering him up in her arms and hugging him tighter than Peter figures she ever has. 

He watches, alongside Matt and Tony, and even though he’s still not used to it, he’s glad he got to see this with two eyes.

She hugs all three of them after that, Logan between them, and Peter feels content. He feels—accomplished. 

When he and Tony get back to the tower, on the roof, Peter breaks. 

He doesn’t know what it is, what in particular is hitting him, but then he realizes that it’s all of it, everything, every little thing. All of this, with Logan, all of it, everything he got past with Beck, it’s all there, swarming around his head like a bunch of bees. He feels good, he feels amazing, he feels terrible, he feels exhausted, he feels like he’s on the top of the world and buried underneath a ton of rubble, all at the same time.

He pulls his mask off as they approach the door, casting it aside before he can accidentally rip it up again. He reaches over and touches his arm, glad that it’s not bleeding again.

“C’mon, we gotta get that stitched up before it sends me into a spiraling—hey, Pete. Hey.” Tony’s in front of him now, stopping him from walking, putting his hands on his shoulders.

Peter looks down, hiccuping over a sob that wasn’t supposed to come out. 

“Hey,” Tony says, more softly, stepping closer to him and running a hand through his hair. 

Peter shakes his head, unable to find words because they’re all a jumbled up mess in his mind, like a rubber band ball or too many Christmas lights, tangled, no sense, no sense. He takes another step forward and buries his face in Tony’s shoulder, the tears hot on his cheeks. 

“You did—so fucking _incredible_ with all that, Pete,” Tony says, rubbing his back. “And that app? Those drones? The headquarters, all those moving pieces that led us to where we were—that’s you. You did that. You coded that shit with me, you laid it out, set it in motion, you did it.”

Peter lets out a wet laugh, shaking his head.

“You found that trap door. You acted with such—grace, kid. You saved Logan. You did. He’s safe and it’s all because of you.”

“Oh my God,” Peter sobs, clutching at Tony’s back. 

“You’re okay,” Tony whispers. “You’re the strongest person I know, bud. You’re so strong, look what you did. Look how far you’ve come.” There’s a beat, Tony slowly swaying them back and forth. “I’m in awe of you, Pete. Really. You’re—you’re beyond. I’m so, so proud of you.”

Peter is proud of himself. He really is. He doesn’t feel that too often, but he feels it now, and he is proud. He’s hurt, and he still has lingering sadness that might always be there, but he’s proud. He’s so, so proud of what he’s overcome.

The door opens and May comes rushing out of it, MJ and Ned on her heels.

“We okay?” she nearly yells, louder than the rushing wind up here.

“We’re okay,” Tony says. “Was just a lot, but our boy, he’s—”

“He’s the best,” May says, immediately snaking under Tony’s arm and joining their hug. “But we knew that.”

Peter laughs, wrapping his arm around her, too.

“Okay, we’re also getting in there, so watch out,” Ned says, right behind Peter and May, winding his arms around the group. “Yup. Love it. I love this.”

Peter glances up to see MJ move closer, quietly and full of strength, strength she feeds him just by looking at him like she is right now. She kisses his shoulder, nestling her face into his neck as she joins in, too.

They’re quiet. Soft, healing.

Tony laughs a little bit, a moment later. “Gang’s all here,” he says. “But we do need to head to the med bay.”

“Okay, you’re right,” May says, stepping back and wiping at her eyes. “You did say he got shot.”

“I got _grazed_,” Peter corrects, as they all split apart. He watches as Ned picks up his mask.

“Definitely enough for concern,” MJ says, as she takes his hand, looking nervously at the cut in his suit and the mottled blood there. 

“Bullet proof from now on, I’m not even playing around,” Tony says, letting them all walk ahead of him as he holds the door open.

“I think we all vote yes on that one,” May says, as they move inside. 

Peter glances back at Tony, and still sees that look of pride on his face. Peter blows out a breath—and finally, amongst all the conflicting emotions and conversation sprouting up between the group of them, he finds something he so often strives for.

He finds peace.

**Author's Note:**

> I will be writing this as I go :)
> 
> * references to a possibility of sexual assault


End file.
